“Raft”
At the said-to-be bottomless pond
at the sand pit, the raft we discovered
was a heavy barn door, maybe ten feet
by twelve, halfway in, halfway out
of the water where others had left it,
probably older boys, always the first
to find something good, use it a while,
then leave it for us, Billy and Larry,
Danny and me, floating it out onto
the water, wading in after it, holding
onto its edge as we slid down the slope
up to our shoulders, then one by one
helped each other climb on, soaked
and shivering, standing to balance,
arms spread, each to a corner, facing
each other, frightened but laughing,
not a forethought among us for a pole
to push out with, nor a plank for an oar,
as we trusted that door as it floated
not on but just under the surface,
one corner sinking, then slowly lifting
as another went down, ankle deep
over the cold, bottomless darkness.
Seventy years later, I still feel that door
sinking under my weight, can still see
the white faces of Larry and Billy
and Danny looking across into mine
as we held our arms wide, as if to keep
some wild, free, invisible creature
there at the center from running away,
and at eighty I know what it was.
______________________________
“Raft” from Raft, copyright 2024 by Ted Kooser, used by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Ted Kooser
Thirteenth United States Poet Laureate (2004–2006) Ted Kooser is a retired life insurance executive who lives on acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife, Kathleen Rutledge. He is a visiting professor at the University of Nebraska, where he teaches poetry and nonfiction writing. His collection Delights & Shadows was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 2005. His poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Hudson Review, The Antioch Review, The Kenyon Review, and dozens of other literary journals. His memoir, Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps, a Barnes & Noble Discover finalist, also won the 2002 Friends of American Writers Award and ForeWord Magazine’s gold medal recognition for autobiographical writing. He is the author of eight full-length collections of poetry, nine chapbooks and special editions, and Braided Creek, a collaboration with Jim Harrison, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2003. Kindest Regards: New and Selected Poems was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2018. Red Stilts was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Braided Creek, a collaboration with Jim Harrison, was published by Copper Canyon Press as an expanded anniversary edition in 2023.
