30 June 2024

By Philip Kuepper

I cannot remember when last I sat,
here, next the ocean.
Was it five months ago?
Still, the ocean. Still, the ocean flows,
and laps the rocks, and laps
the grass that flops into the water.
Still, the tide crests, still, breaks
against the powerful shoulder
of the shore, a shoulder on which
the immensity of the earth depends
against the nervous water, and the excited
cries of gulls. Still, the boats. The boats still
bob lazily to the ocean’s rhythm.
There has been no break in the rhythm.
And the breeze. Could there be a breeze
more blessed blowing through
air veiled in a haze of sun.
A motorboat is just now speeding
in off the ocean, trailing a phosphorescent
wake in the grey water,
and, circling a buoy, speed back out,
while quietly, quietly, not a wingbeat audible,
a gull speeds past overhead.

(19 June 2024)