A Dillydally Way

Trailing naked toes, hat low peaked fingers laced abaft head and sun, white-water gently threading through the webbed keel of one foot. The sky is blasting blue, splotching louder blobs of cobalt around a midday solar blaze. Even the river billows, heaps uplifted ripples into crests. An old man rests his skiff rolling rhythmically to a tune the wind whispers through reed quilled banks. He smiles beneath a broad brim, wonders how long further this journey can flow onward without a braced rudder, nor clinched knuckles upon an implacable steerage. He wallows in his ease, allows the world to float on, to find its own effortless, unhindered way.