Kayaking

The zenith sun lays no clue
to which direction the river moves.
Its glacial motion may be flowing
backwards or uphill. Certainty
is nowhere, silence is alive.

Listen. Catfish whiskers tap
the bottom in search of muddy supper.
Hear turtles breathe from rotted logs
or fern spores roll like boulders to the water.
The chopachopachopa of a rotor
is only a dragonfly’s wings
as it hovers above
a bustle of reeds.

Calendars and watches hold no convention here.

Around the bend, in a small orchard,
Newton watches an apple fall.
Beyond the sycamores to the left
Copernicus tells a crowd that we are not
the center of the universe.
Beneath broad oaks, over a small rise
on the right, Clemens closes his inkwell
and smiles at a stack of papers
before placing them in a leather satchel.
I hope to see him when he comes to soak
his feet in the cool water.