Over ice, the water lies almost turquoise
Surprising:
Is it captured from the sky
This bluish stuff?
Mechanically, I suppose it is.
But that’s the water
— what about the blue?
* * *
Water lies over river ice
Strangely turquoise
How come?
Is it captured from the sky
With the water?
* * *
The paddle blade sings in water
Stirring eddies into throat songs
* * *
Silence is the canoe’s companion:
A breath overhead a duck’s wings tear the air
With low rhythmic growling power
* * *
Gunwaling
Stand up on the gunwales
Of your canoe
Just sternward of the middle
Just so:
Now bounce your knees
And let the rhythm
Carry you across the water.
Fastest way to travel
Up the crick
Without a paddle.
