The Geometry Of Rowing

The Geometry of Rowing

He saw in the body
Of a gull the shape
Of a shell,
In the legs of an egret
The shape of oars.
Through his mind he had angled these
Into the shell he rowed.

Each time he rowed the water
He saw himself in flight,
A point on the radar screen of the cosmos.
He saw himself the radius of a circle,
A line through space.

To embody space, to connect himself
To the cosmos,
Underlaid his need to row. To feel
The pull of the water against his oars,
To feel the pull of water against his muscles,
Angled him
Between earth and heaven.

Philip Kuepper