19 July 2026

By Philip Kuepper

The wind is reading the reeds,
the reeds, the wind.
And little caplets of waves
swim wavering toward shore.
A boat plows south.
And a man in a rowboat
paddles to a stop,
bumping gently against a clot
of shore, the paddle the color
of sunlight. It is as though he is
using a slant of sunlight to row.
(He is briefly mirrored
by the lone rower, passing,
who had earlier set out
from the landing further up shore.
Their reflections in the river
do not come close to touching.)
A willow draws its tresses, to and fro,
on the river’s surface, in the same wind
that is reading the reeds. Or is it
the wind is combing the willow’s tresses?
At any rate, the willow
does not stand still.
Marsh sparrows cheep gossip,
incessantly, as they snap up insects,
then fall silent, suddenly,
for no apparent reason.
They seem to have been turned off
by a switch controlled by the Universe,
as the Universe seems, also,
to have done with the wind,
which is when I quit the river,
because of the heat, and leave it
to itself to flow as the Universe wills.

(28 June 2026)