Restaurant Table

You discuss your favourite philosophy and I frown, and so we talk,
till one by one, the rest of the party trickles by to say goodbye, and we are the last two left.
We order greek salad and continue the discussion and the frowning.
But the large table, communal a few minutes ago, becomes yours and mine.
The air becomes cooler, and the fairy lights dot the space above in a bright blur.

Boatman

(Volta river, Ada, Ghana.)

The clouds close overhead,
the water takes on a grey hue, mutedly shining like some molten metal,
the treeline in the distance is unchanged, muted and graceful now as it was in the sun.

The boatman is standing, one leg on the boat's edge,
a long oar piercing into the water, perhaps it could churn the molten silver all around, if he were a hero in an epic.

I try in vain to photograph the beauty of him, old man in an old boat,
strong, weather-worn, old.
Should I ask him first? He is too far. And moreover, he is part of the river.