27 August 2016

The purple rowboat
floated on the navy sea
before an orange-red backdrop
of sky.  The cove cupped isolated
into an outcropping of rock
awakened by the rising
light of the last
day of the last
week of August.  The silhouette
of a gull turned white
as it flew the width of the scene.
Then a light breeze rose
as earth turned to face the sun
it had turned away from
the night before.

I felt the light anoint me,
and then all around where I stood.
The sea faded to violet, to grey.
The purple boat turned grape.
The cup of the cove filled
with liquid brilliance.
Suddenly!, out of the ordinary,
arced a psychedelic wonder,
a rainbow of fish leaping
into the net of light,
a frolic of fish chased
by some unseen thing in the depths,
then, as suddenly!, disappeared
beneath the water’s surface.

Afterwards, I sensed all was
clothed in a new reality,
a reality that went deeper
than what met my eye,
a reality to the core of each thing:
Boat, sea, cove, rock,
the very place where I stood.
My mind had been rowed
beyond the probable.

Philip Kuepper
(26 August 2016)