Transport, by Winston Derden

Coastal Scene with Shipping and Cattle, by Thomas Gainsborough (UK) 1782.

Transport
 
Hold a moment, gather in a scene repeating,
autumn abated, winter but a breath from born
veiled in the onset of soft-edged dawn.
 
Boatmen engaged with one another, ebb tide, easy moored
against the island’s western shore.
How long anchored in light unformed?
 
Herders camped on headlands the night before,
summer pastures grazed or mown,
awaiting my arrival to load and be gone.
 
How they expect my instruction
even knowing the long-well known,
the wheel and its turning augur on.
 
Time seasons the seasons, unpunctual of their own.
My calendar and clock order transition.
Time without markers maunders along.
 
My boon, my bane, patiently waiting
orders impelling time to be borne,
a master’s hand to shape and form.

Winston Derden

Winston Derden is a poet and fiction writer residing in Houston, Texas. His poetry publications include New Texas, Blue Collar Review, Big River Poetry Review, Illya’s Honey, Barbaric Yawp, ’Merica Magazine, Soft Cartel, Down in the Dirt, Plum Tree Tavern, Eskimo Pie, and numerous anthologies. He earned a BA and MA at the University of Texas, Austin.