30 April 2025

By Philip Kuepper

Mystic River lies higher this April morn.
The moon brought the tide in in the night.
The water is milky
beneath a milky sky.
Milk on milk reflects nothing,
not even the milky gull
that flies low the length of the river.
I start! at the cough of a crow
that cuts the quiet.
There is no wind.
There is a wind, sudden,
to prove me wrong?,
Nature proving wrong this upstart human
dropped amidst the panoply of it.
1, for Nature,
0, for me,
2-zip, Nature, actually,
as the river had detoured me
a block away from it,
earlier, as I came to look
at just how high lay the tide.
The river had made mock of the streets,,
forcing vehicles to make like fish.
I have to hand it to Nature.
Nature rules, regardless.
After all, Nature was here first.
All of this is Nature’s turf.
And Nature is going to defend it.
I concede that.
I show Nature I have come unarmed,
come only to observe
what Nature got up to in the night,
such as several flat-bottomed boats
the river loosed
from their moorings into the streets,
and are now doing their best
to ape the behavior of vehicles.
3-zip, Nature.
Was that the voice of God
I just thought I heard
shout “GOAL”!?
Just whose side is that Guy on?
Or is this a lesson in humility?
The gull is retracing is flight.
The crow is silent.
The moon has begun
to clear the field of water.
3-1, Nature.
Or is it 4-zip?
With Nature, I am
never certain about the score.

(27 April 2025)