Another Season

From Water

If you've slid
over frost-glazed strand
and rowed that shade of blue
past mapled crimson
in the cove she was moored,
if she rose and fell with a sigh
because the season
had grown thin as promises,
then you know, don't you,
something of life
and a little about death.
If she's cast rainbows
in the spray
and moaned with the lust
of wind and sea,
then you know something of dreams.
If you've taken her from water
and hid her away for the long winter,
you know something of sorrow.

~ Ralph Murre