Open Water

Open Water

The swell of a wave
As it hits
Your face
Mouth closed, eyes cleansed
Cold release as it subsides
And you can blink again
Distant score, stretching
Parallax to tell the time is passing
Green against the green
Dunes obscure the hill behind
Swish, swish, swish of the sea
Eternity was never
Quite so immediate
You try to contemplate
But nothing comes
Thoughts quickly dissipate
Plummet to their fate
And leave you, still animate
Your arms and legs
Going through
The motions that you learned
So long ago
Or perhaps, inherent
Transferred from times obscure
Across the generations
Innate traits,
An intergenerational flow
Transcending species
Moving always
With the current
And so, you swim
Forget to flail
Breathe the air
Your arms like fins
Your legs a tail
Not of this, salt doom
But for a moment, with it
In the certain knowledge
That the sea
Flowing freely,
Catching the wind
Has not a care
About your momentary
Existence
And so, you realise,
Nor do you
Nor can you
Not in this nanosecond
Before
It too
Is lost to the sea.

You turn to shore
You reconnect
You move, as you were taught
And eventually,
You find your feet
You stand
As the sea gives you back
To the land.
1 July 2021