11 October 2025

By Philip Kuepper

The rowers stood still,
erect as a row of pines.
They anchored the scene
with contained energy,
while all around them
flightiness ranged:
the river, the woods, the town.
The rowers stood the still center
round which whirled
situations in various states
of departure and arrival:
boats, vehicles, people,
ducks, geese, gulls.
All was movement,
all restless. My eyes focused
on the focused strength
of the rowers, who even when
they moved, they moved
with concerted grace,
a grace, not rehearsed,
but a grace, innate,
in their limbs. And they moved
through the motion all around them
with a certainty that cut, like a laser,
through the scene,
which parted and fell
away to either side of their shells,
as they eased out onto the water.
Then it was as though the whole
scene shifted. All went still.
The restless energy around the rowers
stopped,
sucked up by the rowers rowing.
The rowers had gone
from passive to active,
stillness to motion.
And they took all with them.

(4 October 2025)