25 November 2018

By Philip Kuepper

Boats melt
into the hammered silver river,
gilding the brown shores,
gilding the wet rocks
with abstract reflections,
boats reshaped into hieroglyphs,
messages setting out on a journey
to where dwell the dead.

Trees ashore lean as though mourning,
the wind come, causing them keen.
They keen for the dead,
keen for the season past,
keen for the trees felled,
by man, and storm.

The bright day dims.
The boats take back
their shapes from the abstract.
The river is bled of silver.
The winter wind whispers to the dusk.

(17 November 2018)