Watching the Boats (an original poem)

Monet's Les Barques

Where clouds end and boats begin

I cannot tell.

I only feel the gentle swaying swell

of the waves beneath my feet

and hear the billowed sails that snap

like sheets on a line. Are there eight?

Maybe nine? I start to count

but am lost in delight as the wind-capped waves

meet blue sky bright. Spume, clouds, sails –

soft as cotton or down, the sky in a bowl

and the world upside down and the wind

rushing free and the bend of dark trees and

the roofs of red tiles and the sense of good

miles still before me today.

I don’t know what to say.

~EMP, 2/25/13