Rowboat

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Rowboat

There is a life that was not meant for me,
of sailboats, and Nantucket shingles

of white shorts, white sails, white teeth, white gulls, the wind of the Cape,
the salt in the crab, the spit of the white bow piercing teal water,
of teak and polish and legs of sempiternal tan

I am not of pencil-thin
masts and marinas
clubbed, decked and chromed,
morning wedge of glint and beacon

But oh I am white
and privileged, without a doubt
peachy, the white of Lake Michigan sand,
of shells on that sand, striated with necklaces
of fine-grained earthery,
of peeling sun-blazed birch bark tree
organza diaphany,
skirt of light,
easy

I am of one rowboat
on one small lake, but infinite,
the rowboat of the patchwork paint,
of one broken oarlock,
of oars painted dove gray, one corner
of one oar missing,
with its splitting feathers
raised in the air

Water streaming down the oar-wing
onto my hand, paused
in one moment of many moments
and even more
and yes more
of airy moments
of leisure
of one coasting kind
or another

~ Ruth M.

Here me read the poem here.

Happy Birthday, Dee Dee.

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