Read the poem ‘Free Will’ by Stuart Kestenbaum

In this week’s poem, by Stuart Kestenbaum, the speaker weighs the scientific improbability of free will against his ineffable sense of interconnection and meaning in the physical world. I love this poem’s vivid, visceral images — its blue chicory blooms and sea air — and its quiet awe at the mystery we all live.

Kestenbaum is the author of six collections of poems, most recently “Things Seemed to Be Breaking” (Deerbrook Editions 2021), and a collection of essays “The View from Here” (Brynmorgen Press). He, along with his wife visual artist Susan Webster, published “A Quiet Book” (Brynmorgen Press 2024), a collection of collages and improvised handwritten text. He was Maine’s poet laureate from 2016-2021.

Free Will

My nephew the physicist
says that there is no free will,
that there is no way that
we consciously connect one thing to
the next, and I believe him, except
today my memory is connecting
the chicory by the roadside and
the salt air and seaweed with my life here
years ago when I was painting houses
red in the blue day and yearning
for something I could neither name nor say
but it felt close by and today if I
close my eyes and breathe it can still
feel nearby, whatever this is that I am
trying to name, like the place where
the horizon is formed by sea and sky,
the place where it seems the world
begins and ends when really it is
all circling all arriving returning
eternally singing.

— Stuart Kestenbaum

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Free Will,” ©2026 by Stuart Kestenbaum, appears by permission of the author.

Copy the Story Link

Tagged: Deep Water