The river is high and wide but nothing on last week
when it splashed the paving of the facing quay,
and no vessel was allowed - no rowers, taxis,
no dull revellers in their dismal floating cafés.
After weeks of heavy rain I don't know where
the river finds more scabby shit to tumble down.
The edge is scum, uprooted weeds, and shreds
of cardboard, plastic wrap and packing foam.
Fast water carries water bottles, medicine jars,
waxed packs of juice and punctured soccer balls;
but also branches, thick as your arm, submerged;
sliding, out of sight, to ram our fragile hull.
Most days school crews ignore us - motley, old -
but this day's different, with those battering risks -
and because turning the boat today is fraught
with unruly currents and obscuring mist.
A rower on a school crew gives me a thumbs up,
a secret sign between us tough guys who row stroke;
even over twenty rapid-running muddy metres
I detect comradeship, along with schoolgirl cheek.
Last night I heard a podcast on Berthe Morisot,
her teacher took her with her easel to the Louvre.
Damn! What a painter I'd be if I had her start!
And in that same way I'm envious of school crews.
They started young, and I started sculling late,
I had lived most of a life before I began.
But now like Odysseus I'm strapped in the boat,
which bears me past sirens to points unknown.
Constellations 