Swimming Lapse

← | index | →

You press upon me behind and before...; if I climb up to heaven, you are there. - Psalm 139

On my hundredth lap I sucked in air
to stay below awhile and drift.
It's like flying to feel this upward lift
to the surface. I wondered, why stop there?

Arms first, then trunk, then trunks, I rose.
My toes brushed the penants strung high across
the lanes, past lights, where dust like moss
hangs down from rafters in the shadows.

A little boy gawked, but with a shout,
went back to his lesson. Kicking hard,
I plunged to the exit propped by the lifeguard,
and grazed the header heading out.

Rising surprisingly fast, I cleared
the upper branches of the pines
and squeezed between the power lines.
With wind like a hand at my back I veered

over midday traffic into town,
startling birds by the courthouse clock.
My shadow spooked a pug on his walk,
but no one else. I drifted down

Church Street to the bell tower.
I wished for the camera on my phone.
I swung on the vane, centrifugally thrown
back to town, to the pool, to my lane and the shower,

glad for how this once I'd tried
to let go intent, to go with that lift
that left this lesson as a gift:
at the surface, don't be satisfied.

Image by Susan Rouse.
← | index | →

At the pool, age 6, I would safety-pin a towel for a super-hero cape and launch into flight from the floor in the deep end. At 63, I'm amused to rediscover that sensation of lifting off is just as strong; laps are no fun without it.

My notes about that observation didn't "go" anywhere until I thought, why stop with the facts? In a free flow of writing, I imagined an experience as real to me now as anything else I did last week. To happen upon Psalm 139 was serendipity; it tethers my flight to my faith tradition. - WSS