this empty rowboat

the rowboat claude monet

the knot had worked its way loose

or perhaps i had pushed it away from the dock

no matter . . .

somehow it had set adrift

this empty rowboat

now turning slowly in the current

i followed its progress from the riverbank

using a well-worn path

in whose dusty script

i could read the stories

of the passage of others

long aisles of trees

ripe with the feathered green

of early summer

peered down

to read the words of my journey

each letter written in dew

on pale clustering flowers

at a widening in the river

i left the path for the purple slopes of a hill

where, safe from the world's gaze

i watched as countless rowboats

- all mirrors of my own -

bumped hollowly against each other

lost in their reflections