8 November 2025

By Carlos Dominguez

The River Thames is London; the only landmark on the Tube map.
A blue ribbon separating north from south.
Forded by bridges & tunnels that make it a whole.
Frozen in the past to skate on but today we visit the river to row its miles with the tide.

Facing down river to take in a flotilla of small craft,
flags of origin in wind over water,
an annual festival moved by oar & paddle through rippling deep slate grey waters,
rushing under bridge arches with echoes as distinctive as finger prints.

A race for some yet an elemental experience for us all.
Taking passengers, as of old along this slippery, watery artery.

Gliding slowly past wooden houses that once drew water to quell the great fire,
the city towers of power, docks once fit for an empire,
royal castle with moats & traitors dungeons,
repurposed turbine hall the space of modern art,
a slim swaying footbridge like a needle pointing at St Paul’s….
but still, we all row.

Temples to law, grand hotels, corporate headquarters,
the globe where all the world’s a stage,
the Archbishop’s London pad- on The South Bank,
the gothic houses of gunpowder plot,
life saving busy hospital that people clapped its staff,
the featureless foreverness of Whitehall…
but still, we all row.

Granite embankment from the Moors of Devon,
railway stations with bridges, ferris wheels & hulking war ships,
The Kinks Waterloo sunsets…
but still, we all row.

Moored gently bobbing floating barges-
homes with a view, perched between dry & wet
flanked by bible black cormorants sitting like sentinels drying out their waxless wings…
but still, we all row.

Parks bathe along its banks like green lungs in a pointillist painting,
power stations that once flew a giant pig,
private schools & seats of learning,
local named rowing club houses bring members to its muddy shores…
but still, we all row.

Football ground turned its back to this moving tidal water in preparation for a free kick.
The scale & size of buildings slowly crumbles as we row westwards
& the city melds into what we now call leafy suburbia…
but still, we all row.

The river, where no drop of water is ever the same, effortlessly meanders and slims.
Past bizarrely named little islands obscuring tow paths.
The distance between the connecting bridges seems to grow for ever longer…
but still, we all row.

That grand flotilla now a strung out, scattered, disparate group of craft;
as tiredness takes its prisoners slowly…
but still, we all row.

The scale of the river now tamed
but from the boat’s watery vantage point its tree lined banks seem to push us further upriver;
toward our destination, like a squeezed out toothpaste tube…
but now, we all row no more.