12 April 2023

By Philip Kuepper

Oars propel us.
Waters draw us
into their liquid arms.
We are sirened away
from our native shores,
our natural habitats.
We are lured by disorientation.
We are driven off-center,
pulled out of true.
We are as restless as celestial bodies,
like meteors appearing, suddenly,
out of the heights of nowhere.
Had we all just been content
to have stayed home,
Romans, Germans, Vikings, Normans,
and all the rest down to the present,
perhaps we would be, by now,
a happier human race?
We might have come to know
one another in a more
civilized manner?
Had only the World Wide Web
been invented instead of the wheel?
What genius, then, would have been our portion?

(14 March 2023)