Try to
imagine you’re
light lighter the lightest
high higher the highest, the most
buoyant.
Picture
when your daughter
cradles you in the shallow
water. Carrying you like a
baby.
You two
laughing splashing
forgetting gravity.
Unburdened by weight, land’s logic.
Carefree.
Happy.
Pretend you are
sparkling grapefruit water
excessively effervescent
bubbly.
Barely
there. Only a
hint of flavor, mostly
fizziness shimmering at the
surface.
Do not
think about what’s
below or not below
you. In fact, do not think at all
just be
relaxed.
Calm. Not Heavy.
Almost bursting with air.
Breezy & Loose. Liberated.
Unmoored.
Flat. Stretched.
Reaching out. Be
the horizon that cuts
through sky water, above beneath.
Be the
big bridge
spanning the lake.
Delivering the goods.
Linking lands and worlds and lives in
between.
Believe
in breath and your
body’s ability
to not stay sunk but to rise up,
to float.
from How To Be When You Cannot See
about this poem
Mid-June through the end of August is open swim season in Minneapolis. For two hours three times a week, you can swim back and forth across Lake Nokomis. I have been participating since 2013. I swim across the lake and then later, I write about what I remember doing/feeling/noticing during my swim in an online log. In 2018, I turned these log entries into a series of poems. This particular poem was inspired by a memory of swimming with my daughter, the desire to reflect on the joy of weightlessness, and my love of Adelaide Crapsey‘s cinquain.