Rowboat

On the glass-calm water
he left his boat
drift where it would.
He slept in the late
afternoon sunlight.
No bee droned.
The marsh grass stood
still as a painting.

Suddenly!,
he wakened and stabbed!
At the water,
one swift stab shattering
the glass-calm,
where floated reflected
a Great White Cloud.

He had recently been reading
Melville,
of which he had been dreaming.

Philip Kuepper
(1 December 2013)