first (late!) sea swim of the year yesterday, words from last night… every year i write completely anew almost the same phrases, palimpset, a traditional ballard, soothe reassuring, och aye mcgonagallesque!
oh and pic is rather good, not mine, somebody talented with a big camera
……………..
Take Courage!
First the kerfuffle with the towell, the half hearted dance of concealment
the rigamarole, the wiggle and shimmy into trunks
a hobble across the ouch eek stones, pigeons and plovers eggs, my reluctance real not feigned, there to dip a toe into the briney blue! summertime… oh summertime
wade, then push on through, the flimsy barricade of what? sea grot! a shroud of watered down porridge, which clings close to the shore
a lone plastic bag looms on the swell, parody of a jellyfish
inch inwards, no sudden spasm, rather, slowly immersed beneath the stealth of numbness
a pool of cold lapping cruelly at yer goolies… ha, well, if joyce can have the ‘scrotum tightening sea’
…and then … and then… gung ho geronimo!
to lurch forwards, flung beneath the surface, an ecstasy of splashing, a few frenzied dolphin kicks
down, to grasp a stone from the bottom, Sea Ruby
emerge spluttering, gasp grab at the first lungful of greedy air
aaah
not so bad … not so bad…
caul of water, birth, baptism, emergence
i am seal, sleek slicked hair, blubbersome and bewhiskered, stories, like tears, within my soft mournful selkie eyes
thought, thankfully, ha, dwindles beneath this mere torrent of being alive
the cold, the salt, there is a contraction to form, saturnine, ridgity, definition
pared down to this sadness, sadness? at what? still.. it loiters
i flip over onto my back, a bloated resting, meniscous, buoyed up, the boundary of being within, being of water
White Cliffs
Blue Sea Beneath
Blue Sky Above
stranded here… in the forever
…kerplonk splosh, reverie interruptus, i loook to the shore, my son, floundering pleasantly in the shallows
big grin, hoik lobbing pebble followed by pebble in my direction. bless
