Writing on the Water

Writing on the Water

Between the railroad bridge
And the Mystic Drawbridge,
The rowers oared their shells
In competitive heats.

I thought them words
In the act of being
Written, each one
A noun acting as verb.

They were subject and predicate in one.
They were the act and the act
Of being, the effort of their performances
The ink they used,

Invisible ink on the papery water,
All, to my eye, erased
as quickly a it was written,
Yet all etched, indelibly,

On the river of the rowers' souls.
This, then, was
The script of the race
Written as I watched.

Philip Kuepper
(The Battle Between the Bridges,
September 2011)