The Oars, Forgotten

…

The grass is rough underfoot as I sit in

an old lawn chair by the river. Birdsong

swells: mynahs, harsh crows, and the peep,

peep of a river-bird I cannot see.

…

It’s turning cold, and the sky has two colours.

Behind the thin clouds, the blueness is giving

way to a delicate violet. On the horizon, an

orange band shrinks behind a line of dark trees.

…

Upriver, the throaty growl of a ferry muscles off the

dirt-brown river and, glancing up, two narrow rowboats

appear, coxed fours, slicing the water neatly, trailed by

an aluminium coach launch with a tiny outboard motor.

…

All three are drifting against the tide. The coach

beckons to the rowers. All faces are turned to him

and the oars, forgotten, jut out at random angles.

A chorus of frozen gesture, drifting in unison.

…

Then a magpie hops across

the lawn at my feet and

stops. It studies me with unsettling

intelligence; I tilt my head.

…

I look up, and

…

the rowers have left nothing

but ripples.

…

…

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