25 February 2024

By Philip Kuepper

The world has turned ermine.
A cold fur covers all.
An owl watches, saucer-eyed, the ocean.
He sits visibly invisible
atop a post amidst
a cluster of marram grass.
The ocean lies in wait.
For what? To strike?
The shore lies pensive.
Boats in the harbor shiver.
They sit jittery on the jittery water.
Some appear almost comical,
bearded white as they are.
And from one a swath of snow
has fallen away causing it appear
half-shaved. Others appear
stern. They mean business.
But then they are the workboats.
I fancy them. But then
I fancy getting work done.
An egret decides against landing.
And it flies away like a massive
snowflake falling upward,
back to the cloud from which it fell.
The owl’s feathers lift in a teasing
gust of wind, then flatten again.
The sun, with effort, tries
to burn through the blotting paper sky.
But the sky absorbs its ink of light.
And the whole of the scape hangs
sole grey.
A fishing smack makes
for the open ocean.
A lighter hoots, hidden,
in the nest of a cove,
a lighter I thought mute, like a swan.
Had a horn been affixed to it?
A sloop sleeps.
The harbor is at rest,
its head asleep on the pillow of the horizon.
Tell me. Do harbors, sleeping, dream?

(17 February 2024)