7 September 2025

By Philip Kuepper

It is early.
Other than the rower
only quiet is up.
To the eye, the water
lies still. Water is never still.
It will lie glacial in its movement,
but never still.
Shell to water solders
one to the other,
long enough for the rower to board.
Shell and rower sit.
The rower takes in the scape.
Not a pine moves so much as a branch,
nor does so much as a puff
of breeze move across the water.
All is held, for a moment,
in freeze-frame.
Then the oars’ blades penetrate
the virgin water.
The shell moves forward,
glides, idles,
moves forward, again.
The water is receptive.
There is communion.
The only sound is when
blades and water connect.
Epiphany happens.
This is when
the rower leaves their body,
and enters their spirit.

(20 August 2025)