5 September 2020

By Philip Kuepper

The sea kept,
and in its keeping, kept
drawing me to it,
in its blue particularity.

It lay, a sullen sea,
sullen over its not being
sky, sky it could only reflect
at being.  Even sprinkled prettily
with white chips of sail-
boats, the sea remained
sullen.  And sunlight,
spreading its carpet of sparkle,
did not soften the sea’s
resolve to be moody.

Did I know any sea jokes?,
thinking I could get the sea
to laugh.  What fascinated me
was the sea’s inability
to see its intrinsic beauty.
There the sea lay,
cut from whole cloth,
the sky could not hope to replicate.

And what but a body
of water could receive,
effortlessly, rowers,
in their desire to row?
Certainly not the sky.

But the sea was not having
any of my reasoning,
just as it had not laughed
at my attempts at jokes.
They sea lay unimpressed
by academician or comedian.

So, I left the sea at that,
to itself, brooding
over thinking Nature had slighted it,
and turned toward the woods
of pines, sighing, knowingly,
in the summery breeze.

(1 August 2020)