17 August 2025

By Philip Kuepper

The rowers waited
for the river to turn calm.
The storm that passed through
had made a cauldron of the water,
which weird sister clouds attended,
that would have made the rowers Macbethian,
had they approached the scene.
After all, seeing things through
an eye of newt could only distract.
Anyway, the wood, that stood
across the river from where the rowers waited,
had already moved.
A wind had arrived,
like liberating troops,
clearing the sky of clouds.
The rowers, come,
had not been in vain.
Patience willed out.

(30 July 2025)