It's Still Life

Through a Fog

That moment is a snapshot. That wooden dingy
breaking through the fog with red sails in
a perpetual stretch, reaching for deliverance.
Its hull gleaming with thick blackened tar
and pitch paint, the bow chipped by storms and

miscalculations and agitation. Such a headstrong
and trusting craft under the determined eye
of its captain – there standing, there eyeing,
back crooked, knowing that every wall, whether
fog or blind ignorance, has another side to see.

That little boat charged on ambition, cut through
weary-flat water where not a breath of wind
possessed the mist. And then a long oar dipped
the water, a single stroke turning green to slime
against the shore, against rocky walls, clinging.

Each stroke is a tale of travels, inscribed in
fluid calligraphy. It was a memory, indelible
on my fertile heart, waiting for a sanskrit sun
to burn through this deep and prostrated fog.

Sunday Whirl Wordle #261
slime, stay, travel, charge, bullet, burn,
trust, crook, stand, chip, stretch, sail