Things that go bump in the night-Like lit students

Berry Bush
The winter they abandoned Long Point Village—
A dozen two-room houses of pine frames clad
With cedar faded to silver and, not much whiter
Or larger, the one-room church—they hauled it all
Down to the docks on sledges, and at high tide
Boats towed the houses as hulks across the harbor
And set them on the streets of Provincetown.
Today they’re identified by blue tile plaques.
Forgotten the fruitless village, in broken wholes
Transported by a mad Yankee frugality
Sweating resolve that pickled the sea-black timbers.

The loathsome part of American Zen for me
Is in the Parable of the Raft: a traveller
Hacks it from driftwood tugged from the very current
That wedged it into the mud, and lashes it
With bitter roots he strips between his teeth.
And after the raft has carried him across
The torrent in his path, the teacher says,
The traveller doesn’t lift the raft on his back
And lug it with him on his journey: oh no,
He leaves it there behind him, doesn’t he?
There must be something spoiled in the translation,

Surely those old original warriors
And ruling-class officials and Shinto saints
Knew a forgetting heavier than that:
The timbers plunged in oblivion, hardened by salt;
Black, obdurate throne-shaped clump of ancient cane-spikes
At the raspberry thicket’s heart; the immigrant
Vow not to carry humiliations of the old
Country to the new, still infusing the segmented
Sweet berry, illegible ingested seed, scribble
Of red allegiances raked along your wrist;
Under all, the dead thorns sharper than the green.

—Robert Pinsky

UHHHHHH...Well this is the poem that Addie and I are doing for the class, and with my understanding of this poem, we'll epic-ly fail.

I've read this thing twice and thus far I've got nothing for the theme or meaning. So in absence of my deep incite to this poem, I will substitute what imagery I find and what phrases strike my interest.
In the poem there seems to be there separate stanzas with different situations; my analysis will break apart the stanzas rather than "reading" the poem as a whole.

Stanza 1:
I imagine a small 1930's eastern seaboard town, with gulls in the air and this house like thing being troughed through the streets. Moving a house from one dying town to a different one is all I get from this stanza.

Stanza 2:
I think of the book "Into the Wild" when picturing this stanza. The guy spends all this time and effort to make this boat thing then once he success' he ditches the boat. I'm interested in the connection between the boat and house. What’s up with the translation comment?

Stanza 3:
I picture Christ’s crucifixion. Warriors and ruling officials are those near the very top in the caste system in India, and Shintoism is a religion out of classical Japan (my trivial knowledge.) I feel the berry or seed that it refers to would make the poem make a whole lot more sense if I knew what it was; wonder if there’s a connection between it and the boat/house. Also what’s up with the dead v. alive conflict in the last line?

Well all together I've basically restated the poem without and incite than my mental imagery and fun facts,

Sorry for wasting your time but thank you all the same,

Dusty Trem-mc-mc-bath'n