Tubingen Poem by Grahame Lockey

Someone punts
through the low-lying mist
on the still Neckar,
a distraction from empty boats
askew on their moorings -
high summer green
crowding the water's edge.

On unpredictable banks
couples mix - shooing-off
the loose, reforming nets of gnats;
while busy-collecting shade
is thickening out
the lines and curves of detail.
A student fights the light: slight

evening blue - turns page
to half-read page, his hair
in tufts between his fingers.
The air is leafy with bird song,
rough with gravel underfoot.
People are making for their
evenings. Nearby, smoky cafés

clutter up with easy talk,
that confusion of laughs
and jumbled conversations,
while here, dimly, a pinkness
lights the straight pole,
completes the liquid purl
of wood on all-bending waters.