Tuesday poem: Deep Sea Swimming

This is a teetering-on-Tuesday poem. It is in fact Monday evening here in nz, but I want to post this before that whale called work swallows me up. (Starting tonight, but not lasting forever).

Recently Claire beckoned us to the sea, and that trail of thought took me back to this poem which I wrote at 40 - one of the first I ever wrote. I would now describe my immersion differently, but this was how it was then ...

Deep Sea Swimming

I'm out of my depth here

Who would have thought it?

You walk the world for 40 winters

Have children who rise to meet you face to face

You expect by now to stand on sturdy feet

Calves like plaited loaves

Gleaming above the water line

Baskets of fish and tools to catch them

Fair and square on each bent arm

The fanciful high tide of childhood

Going going gone

But no

There's water

underfoot and rising

An ocean tilting

Holding me not quite firm

My basket tumbles

Fish turn and flick

While I, wrinkling

in my shimmery world

Roll on my back

Ease my limbs

With unusual grace

A middle aged mermaid

Out in the depths

Her heart on the horizon

pm