6 September 2020

By Philip Kuepper

They rowed in chiaroscuro
as dusk deepened,
the grey-haired woman,
the white-haired man,
rowed ghostlike,
their blades next to silent
as they sliced the water,
they the perfect
touch to the advent
of evening.  I breathed, evenly,
in time to their rowing.
A willow wept on the water
where they passed, its leaves
leaving thin trails
that thread themselves
through the wakes the rowers made,
as threads of light kept fading
into the shadows dusk wove
in the air, dusk through which
the rowers wove their ways,
until they disappeared.  I waited
for a moon to appear,
and highlight the hair
of the woman, of the man.
But it proved a no moon night.
And I was left holding
what never came to pass.

(7 August 2020)