Beginning a Novel

Beginning a Novel

Is like embarking 
On a long sea voyage. 
You’ve been promised 
You’ll find something 
Beautiful awaiting you 
On the other side.
But your eyes on the deep 
Waters of its middle pages, 
You run aground 
On a sentence 
Like a reef of rock 
Missing from the charts. 
You wince feeling the hull 
Scrape along it, not because
It is a bad sentence, 
But because it is
A great one, 
One of those sentences 
So good you can’t 
Bear to read another.
So you go back to shore,
Vow never to travel again,
Raise children who grow 
Nervous when carried
Out of hearing of the sea.