9 May 2021

By Philip Kuepper

They rose,
and went to the river,
the stream of their lives unbroken
even by sleep. They had rowed in their sleep.
The evening before they had rowed home,
eaten, slept,
a sleep they had slipped into,
like their shells slipped into water.
Sleep was the river,
swept smooth of dream,
smooth of nightmare;
the grey silk of sleep they eased into.
Come morning, the river was waking
they rowed out onto,
flowing toward the moment
when onto becomes into,
when the gears of the conscious shift,
when the oars begin to drive themselves,
when they are no longer merely being,
but they are at the moment
when they become.

(27 April 2021)