15 November 2016

By Philip Kuepper

All lies still at the shore, just now.
Not so much as a wrinkle
of a wave moves. Light lies
on the water like a lover
just having made love.
The atmosphere is a hymn of calm.
The first sign of motion
is a ripple rumpling the water,
rumpled by the soft
breath of a breeze.
And it is this that seems
to set the morning in motion,
set a lone
marsh sparrow to song,
the clatter of a pair
of oars has picked up on,
as a rower, unbeknownst
to me, has arrived,
and is beginning to ready
his shell for the water,
the water waiting,
the water, receptive.
I watch the ceremony of this unfold,
the lifting of the shell
off the roof of his Jeep,
carrying it to the water,
laying it there,
with the care not unlike
one who is laying one he loves,
on a bed made
meant to be unmade
by the passion of connection.
He settles in the shell,
positions the oars,
and rows out onto
the silent water he will
bring to song, to accompany
the song of the lone
sparrow, now flown
deeper into the marsh,
singing, now, an echo of
his earlier song,
as the song of the oars
of the rower rises
and deepens, the farther out
on the enchanted
water he rows.

(4 November 2026)