At the height of summer there is always
some sense of tipping, of downslope. Some
afternoons the wind rushes the season,
blows sun-rolling swells on the river,
making even the clog of watermilfoil
ripple with caught brilliance like a Monet.

Out on the waves, a pair of dark wings lift
and stretch, held aloft while the cormorant,
led by its long orange beak, breasts the current,
a low-riding gondola in its own
goth Venice, drying its wings while it swims
toward a second cormorant, they alone
of their kind here together in their wild
belonging where the two halves of summer meet.

Thomas R. Smith is a poet, editor, essayist, and teacher living in River Falls, Wisconsin. His most recent books are a poetry collection, Medicine Year (Paris Morning Publications), and a prose work, Poetry on the Side of Nature: Writing the Nature Poem as an Act of Survival (Red Dragonfly Press).