(for Fran Fike)

A summer night,
I find a boat
Tied to a tree:
A normal home.

She lost her string,
And stepping in,
I push the shore there,
An act of stealth.

A troubled glad without a voice,
A mountain song, the boat moves on.
The water runs on either side;
The circle swell, a sudden light
Takes me.

I fix my view
Upon the ridge
Horizon's eye -
Above the gray sky.

I tip my oar to raise the stroke,
The wading swan, the image broke,
A looming peak, a pirate size,
Uprears its head a sudden guise
Takes me.