Boat Basin

The river has been waiting for them,
These stuporous men staring across
The water to the distant shore.

Behind them the roar of a freight
Over gleaming silver rails.

For years they had rested
In its rolling embrace.
Communities in stasis, whole villages

And continents fixed in place while they
Gained distance from their sight. Moonlight
And starlight and the dark of tunnels

Have been theirs. In cities that remain
A blur have they slept in back alleys
And donned the robes of drunken seers.

Now comes a barge to laze upon the river,
Drawing them, as one, to the water’s edge,
Where they motion violently for a return
To their unobstructed view.

July 2003