Home > Work > Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000
1 " when you lie awake in the eveningscounting your birthdaysturn the blood that clots on your tongueinto poems. poems.from “The Message of Thelma Sayles "
― Lucille Clifton , Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000
2 " may the tidethat is entering even nowthe lip of our understandingcarry you outbeyond the face of fearmay you kissthe wind then turn from itcertain that it willlove your back may youopen your eyes to waterwater waving foreverand may you in your innocencesail through this to that— Lucille Clifton, “blessing the boats,” Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000. (BOA Editions Ltd. April 1, 2000) "