The Poetry of Rowing

The Poetry of Rowing

If rowing be a form of poetry, row on.
The morning being rowed through
could not have been
more exquisite reminder:
Li Po embracing the moon
hung faintly in the blue
glass sky; Shakespere's "waves,
hastening minutes" toward shore;
Rilke's "swan, infinietly silent
and aware," unlike Chaucer's cuckolded
Miller unaware; a pine, reflected
by the water, reminiscent
of Basho's mirage; and two men,
on shore, like Cavafy's men
passing unseeing yet seeing
in opposite directions.  That morning,
the river beat like the White Pony's heart,
the beat to which the rower timed
his strokes, the rhythmic stroking
of oars to river, to the beating heart
of the White Pony river.

Philip Kuepper
(25 July, 2013)