Image of Me


Rocks and rocking
    On a rippled river
        alone I row


By dusty dawn
    Where silent still
        Rising, rowing
            reluctant to touch the shore


Past factories that burn the days
    Wilderness
        that days have passed


By ancient fires on fleeting isles
    near a dream once lay
        now drifting, drifting
    solitaire
        afar the measured dew


Thence loon took flight
    and all my youth
        shattered upon the water


There beside me rowed another
    Churning the channel
        Questing, unquenchable


Looking at him closely
    He frowns
        He is homeward bound


Two upon the water
    One upon the earth
  Neither here nor there
        merely a lucent reflection


We are men of different creed
            Differed minds
        Who together stay the course


Likened by the sun
            that burns our flesh
        thorny winds that taunt our strength
                Inescapably
                we are one


Together we row
            our oars cutting in cadence
         One for the shoreline, the other
                unknown


(JP ~ 2004)