15 June 2025

By Philip Kuepper

“Cape Song”

I hitchhiked the arm of the Cape.
I hitchhiked the bicep of it.
I hitchhiked the elbow, the fist.
It is splendid,
the curve of it,
the curve of it, north,
into the Atlantic,
into the cold, hard
blue of the Atlantic. (Men have,
for centuries, set out
from the fist to fish
the Banks, where rich deposits
of fish are kept,
men having been holding up the Banks,
for centuries, with their rods,
and in their getaway boats.)
The arm of the Cape
displays an innate
power as it stretches out into the water.
It owns the ocean where it lies.
And when the wind blows the sand about
at the bay named after buzzards,
it appears the arm is flexing its bicep,
in a teasing display of strength.
At the elbow, Chatham Light
speaks in nautical semiphores.
And, at the fist, Provincetown
opens and closes
its palm in welcome,
a welcome the Pilgrims, Portuguese, and gays
have known, and cherish
the safe harbor of.
The arm of the Cape is flung round
the shoulders of the Atlantic
in a matey embrace,
buddy and buddy,
out on the town enjoying port leave.
And come nights, the arm
is an arm one curls up in
the protection of,
to sleep the sleep of children
exhausted from playing
on the sun-dazzled beaches
of childhoods, still innocent
of reality.

(24 May 2025)

“The Prairie Whispers to the Desert”

I am just now jumping off
the cliff of this poem,
and into the thick, silky
grass of the prairie America.
Up like shots flutter two butterflies,
one yellow, one lavender,
and a pair of communion
wafer white moths.
They flutter west,
like fur infinitesimal
waves breaking in a sea of air.
I stand amidst the Great
Plains facing west. I am faced
with desert, Mojave, Sonora,
that glow with sand verbena and dune primrose.
Cross them? If I do so,
will they cross me?
Or will they allow me
knife a cactus, and drink?
I would toss one back with the elf owl.
But about desert predators?
Will I be the answer to what they prey for?
And will sidewinders ess away
across the waves of sand?
Or ess toward me?
I shall raise my arms in a “V” of praise
with the Joshua trees.
I shall put on my shaman
and dance the coyote dance.
I shall wait for night, and walk
the celestial stars walk of fame.
It is cold, nights, in deserts.
The Bedouin will tell you as much,
and the men who went looking for the Seven
cities of Cibola. I wrap myself up,
against nights, like a papoose.
I dream of Mother Universe.
I waken dry-mouthed.
I find a mirage. I drink.
Mind over matter has seen me
through a lot. I am in
Joaquin’s green valley. I eat
a little of the abundance:
apricots, grapes. I drink of the Sacra-
mento. I walk west
to the coast, and find myself
already atrek there,
next the Pacific, foaming,
in the gold-drowned morning.

(23 June 2025)

“The Gold-Drowned Morning”

The tough ruck of the sack held heft,
heft enough to hold
thermos, lunchbox, bedroll, book.
I held compass and map,
though if the track I trekked
was true, I was hiking true.
I could hear the ocean, faintly,
in the distance, the near inaudible
shrugging of it rolling over itself.
I unconsciously shrugged my shoulders
to redistribute pack.
I was three hours past
the border of noon, where no one
stopped me to check my I.D.
(Remind me to tell you about
no one sometime, not someone
you meet up with everyday.)
Where was I? Oh, yes,
three hours beyond the border of noon.
I was tiring, and thinking
where is the descent to the ocean?
Then, there it was, a steep decline
to the beach where I would camp.
The air was ripe with the aroma of brine
as I descended through it
to an ocean curling in long tubes of foam
having rolled all the way from Asia.
The light was still high as I set foot on the beach.
I tattooed the sand with my bootprints.
I exhaled relieved I was
where I wanted to be
at this time this far in
from the border of noon.
The land of time is endless,
the plain of it lying
as far as the eye can see,
or the mind comprehend.
I untied my bedroll,
let drop my rucksack.
I knew the night ocean would roll in cold.
I gathered driftwood and dropped cones
from pines that stood gnarled ancient sages,
the cones their dropped hints
of wisdom. I lit them,
and sat at the fire
that flamed between me and the ocean,
the tongues of flames waves
conversing with the waves of the ocean.
I listened
to the depths of their wisdom.
I ate. I slept. I dreamed
I had been transformed into a wave,
part flame, part ocean,
neither of which overcame the other.
Then the wave broke,
vanished, and I was swallowed
into the darkness of the unconscious.
When I rose, come morning, I noted
the sun had changed borders on me.
Would not one, again, not ask
for my identity?
I ate, rolled up my bed,
hefted my pack onto my back.
Oh, yes, I, also, yawned.
I mustn’t forget I yawned
in the face of the immensity
of where I stood.
I saw to it every last spark
of the eye of the fire had died.
And I began my trek along the beach,
in the gold-drowned morning.

(27 May 2025)

Editor’s note: On 13 July, “The Prairie Whispers to the Desert” was placed in between “Cape Song” and “The Gold-Drowned Morning”. The three poems then got an umbrella title, “American Trilogy”.