The Rower

By: Hunter Christian

Wake and rise!
Wipe away sleepers from sleepy eyes
In a moment of nostalgic pause
You take solemn notice of the witching hour
You ponder its cause
A woebegone call-to-arms sounds from the watchtower
Your naught just a scholarly gent seeking a bachelor-of-laws

You hear her velvety voice rise like hurried trumpets in a vibrato yell –
“Go Harvard, beat Yale!”
You temper your hearts hurried pace
Your younger self hurriedly readies for The Race

Ivy League rower –
Tote your broken oars down to the river bend,
to gage your true reflection,
dip your face slower and lower

Seek the Harvard sons whom rowed in kind
Bask in the crimson moonscape you so long to show her
On a straight in the faithful river Thames that transcends place and time;
You and she race to the horizon,
propelled by the machinery of a veteran rower

Hear the whippoorwill call your name
You return the favor in a call much the same
You're one half the tandem of age-old players
Playing in earnest – one of God’s favorite games

For decades these riverside lowlands made you a wanton surveyor
Beneath twilit skies your torch burns a hearty flame
To the woodland’s inhabitants you're an interloper purveyor

Lesser be the man who hides his shame
Lesser the risks taken,
Lesser be the game
Lost to the ghosts forgotten of name –

Whose haunted voice calls to you in a measured whisper
You pause once more, as you did before
Bechance naught waste – no sweeter a taste – you wantonly kiss her
O' how kindly trumpets yield to soften the air by way of woodwinds and strings
In a mellow bellow she swears “I love you mister!”