Photograph: Werner Schmidt

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Rowing in Basque

Rowing in Basque

In Basque country
fourteen men crew
a trainera,
rowed in competition,
fishing village against fishing village,

a competition evolving
out of the 12th century
when rowers would race one another
out into the rough
Atlantic to harpoon
whales sighted off the coast,

men powered by the survival of their culture,
men powered by the ocean,
men made men of
by the ocean, men
getting in touch with
the fish in their blood,
the ancestral fish
in all our bloods.

In Basque country, men
row their civilization.

Philip Kueeper
30 October 2013

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