I Thought The Water

I Thought the Water

Out of the fog
The rower appeared
Like an apparition gliding
Across the water,
Oars at rest,
Spread midair to either side of him,
Not a sound,
Not even of the slipping
Of the shell through the water.
'Like liquid silk,'
I thought the water,
The color of silk
Parted by the graphite shell.
Was he even there?,
So reminiscent of the miraculous was he.
The fog closed round him.
He vanished as I watched,
His only evidence of passage
The gentle lapping of waves at shore.

Philip Kuepper