26 June 2022

By Philip Kuepper

He rowed to where trees
shaded the water,
and felt the singlet of sunlight
fall from his body.
On so hot a day,
better a singlet of shade
to suit him,
and a kiss of breeze on his skin.
Why he was out on the water at all
had been his sudden urge
not to be on land.
He wanted to get away.
He wanted to be away,
even away from himself, on occasion,
to step out of his skin,
and ponder his place
in the universe.  He needed to retreat
from the continuous rush forward
in the ever more sped up
twenty-first century.
He needed to pause and recompose
his life story as he was living it.
In his shell, on the water,
on the soothing flow of water,
he picked away at the hard shell
of indifference that had begun
to grow round him.

(15 June 2022)