9 November 2026

By Philip Kuepper

I have come out early
into the blue emerald morning,
into the cold, crisp blue
emerald morning.
I shiver in my jacket.
I glove my hands
in the pockets of my jeans.
I stand in the incandescent
dawn, waiting for it to turn warm,
autumn come streaming
across landscape, and oceanscape.
I can see my breath speaking
spiritspeak. I watch it closely.
By watching it can I
interpret what it is saying?
Then my attention is drawn
to men unmooring a trawler,
named Desdemona. It begins
to reverse slowly into the still
half-asleep bay,
puffy with waking waves.
I find myself yawning
as I watch them depart,
the rigging of the trawler
like a high comb draped with a mantilla.
Gulls fandango the air above it,
circling it as it moves forward,
dawn sparking the back of each gull.
I sense fish in the depths
becoming alert at the approach
of the trawler, and the shadow
of the net, and the net, itself,
begin played out across the water,
as it floats, then, slowly,
sinks to sweep the depths
for catch. I sense the fish
fear being caught. I sense
the fishermen eager
to catch them, haul in
the net, fill the hold.
I sense the panic felt
by the caught fish.
Caught in the hold, their bodies
break like a miniature ocean of waves,
dawn light plays the scales of,
each flash of light on each
thrashing of their bodies,
a facet of brilliance in the blue
emerald morning.

(1 November 2026)