After “Hushing”, a painting by
Nikolai Dubovsky

If you had watched it from way out here, hovering
weightless over the water, half a mile from shore –

it would have been different. You would have seen
the other side of the clouds, the tops of the snowball

clouds brushed in green gold. But being, as you were,
alone in a fishing boat rumbled in shadow, you saw

only a thousand shades of dark driving you to the red-forests,
shelter from the coming rain. I wanted you

to join me in the amber water. But you never looked
my way. Had you seen the hills of snow on the upside

of the storm, you might have remembered what
playing felt like, you might have returned to your

fishing boat full of dreams, captain of a
mighty ship en route to conquer paradise.