Surrendering the Story

Equinox 
                                                                                                                                           

I see now that my story drives me,

a rudder embedded in, and against, the flow.

It pushes the water, resisting the surrender that would guide my ship forward.

And what is a rudder without compass or captain,

or a raft with no current,                                                                                                        

or a quest with no map of the wandering stars?

Feigning passivity, the radical surrender of one’s story

marks an equinoctial point

where night equals day, and time completes its circle.

                                                   

                                                 Copyright © 2017 Laury Boone Browning

About the poem: It sometimes feels like my inner poet knows things I don't know. 

This poem referenced the concept of the equinox before I found myself  looking it up, and I still don’t completely understand the related earth science, the astronomy, behind it. 

But, I have this notion that like the position of the stars seem to shift with the earth’s wobble, the “boasting, running stars” as John Donne referred to them, our orientation in our own lives seems to shift when we break the push and pull of our personal stories.