Figures
       

In front of me a table rock in three segments
water washes over and drains slowly back
turning water-weed to a satiny sheen.

Out in the bay below a bare perpendicular rock
a solitary flat-bottomed boat with a straw roof
under which a figure sits all morning motionless.

Beyond him tier upon tier of mountain peaks,
line after line, and in between a grey blue mist
suggesting ravines, and winding, upward tracks.

On one of these, under a single tree
with a branch arched to the right, a smudged
distinct shape heading for the next height.

I sit by the water's edge in flow and fall,
the boatman keeps his fixed, unhurried hour
the mountains rise, imprinted for all time in mist.

Happy here in a daze of contentment,
my mind travels with that other shape,
the mist opening and closing, keeping the space

in which he moves. I could follow that dark shape,
that frail, indomitable form into the night,
the mist opening out, then closing at my back.

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Copyright © 2011 Maurice Harmon All rights reserved
from When Love Is Not Enough
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission