25 April 2025

By Philip Kuepper

Oh!, but, I thought,
for an instant, they were
crystals beading the edges
of the blades. Sunlight had played
one of its numerous
tricks on me,
a happy trick, mind you,
but a trick, nonetheless.
Then, again, what, exactly,
could I have done
with beads of crystals?
Sell them, I suppose,
crystals, though, that,
at my touch,
would have evaporated.
That’s the thing about
the property of water.
Touch it, and it just
rolls of your fingers,
or, in this case,
rolls off oars’ blades
in the act of rowing.
Water. We can’t live without it.
And, yet, we can’t
ever possess it.
How like love, water.

(20 April 2025)