3 May 2020

By Philip Kuepper

Dawn is slowly rolling up
the carpet of night spread on the river,
the carpet where hangs the morning star,
and a fingernail moon,
and leaves it rolled against the western shore.

A gulp! suddenly breaks the river’s surface.
A fish has just breakfasted on a water bug.

From somewhere behind me,
a purple finch begins to sing.
I look toward the hills,
where just beginning to burgeon
are birch and oak amidst young pine
being raised by a stand of old growth.

Among them, the finch, whose song
seems a valediction
of the carpet of night rolled up,
the fish’s hunger,
the burgeoning of the trees.

The sound of a chain being dragged
along the wooden deck of a boat
answers the slurping of blades
as a rower passes,
leaving chains of miniature pools,
on both sides of his shell, in his wake,

each of these parts to the design
in the carpet dawn has spread
on the river, the sun
is using as a looking glass
to comb its golden locks,
and leave them trailing
over the waking world.

(17-18 April 2020)