He Who Rowed

He Who Rowed

He would cast wide
His net of rowing.
He imagined his shell a needle
Mending one vast
Net of bodies of water:
The harbor at Stockholm;
The estuary of the Thames;
The mouth of the Seine;
The strait at Istanbul;
The bay at San Francisco;
The rivers of America:
Columbia, Missouri,
Mississippi, Ohio,
Monongahela, the Delaware,
These the net in his mind he would cast
As having rowed,
And in the deep
Gray years of being, cast
Wide across his memory,
Cast wide across the satisfied
Smile of his memory.

Philip Kuepper
(February 2012)