Important note: This is a shape poem , but if you look at it in Reader, it distorts the shape by left margin justifying. Please click on the title again and you will view it from my blog where it will be centered and you can see the shape.
Skinny-Dipping
There’s a change in the weather, a shift in the light.
The palm trees are swaying. Three stars shining bright.
The water is cooling, my exercise through.
Clouds cover the moon. I think it’s my cue
to get out of the water before I turn blue,
then clouds shift and the moon turns its usual hue.
The wind stirs the water. I think of past times
ages ago in different climes.
All those past lives, can they really be mine?
If I put experience in a straight line,
could I see the reason for things as they were
as my life sped by–—a perpetual whirr?
What gave me the courage to do what I did
since that time long ago when I was a kid
and took that first journey out on my own,
out of the house across grass newly mown,
fresh from the bathtub, laughing with glee,
nude for the whole world to look out and see.
Running down the sidewalk until I was captured
again by my mother, winded but enraptured
by this one-year-old daughter escaped from her bath,
already set out on her singular path.
So many roadways traveled since then.
So many different lives that have been
tried and discarded in favor of others.
Surrogate fathers and surrogate mothers,
surrogate sisters and friends freshly minted,
plane tickets ordered, paid for and printed.
Travel adventures. Dangers to survive.
Making it through it all still alive.
I come up from the pool,
dripping and shivering.
Those few bold stars
above me delivering
promises that I
might still be a rover.
While there is breath left,
my life isn’t over.
For V.J.’s Weekly Challenge prompt, shift: “Alter your routine in some small way this week.
The idea is not to do something that over taxes your already busy schedule – just something that shifts you enough to make a difference. Or maybe, it won’t. Your response can be in the form of prose, poetry, photograph(s) or whatever moves you.”
The “shift” I did was to go out to the pool and swim and exercise for an hour before writing to her prompt word. The poem above is what resulted.
Now that is a bit of fun. I love the little bottom and legs that the shape of the poems makes.
LikeLike
Glad you caught that.. just the last three stanzas seemed to fall naturally into that shape with a tiny bit of help with the legs and feet@
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautifully written!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Monica, for your close attention.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a wonderful response to the prompt. Lots of fun. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Miriam. Another one that just sort of went where it wanted to go..a bit like I’ve been my whole life.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nothing wrong with that.
LikeLike
This is very inspired! The shape comes out nicely. So impressed, and a little jealous – I used to swim at night after putting the kids to bed – best time of day.
LikeLike
Love the swim cap.
LikeLike
ha.. They didn’t make kid-sized ones, yet we always wore them. I think they must have just trapped the water inside. Perhaps they made us in the few swimming pools we were ever in, so hair wouldn’t get trapped in the filters, but why I wore them in the stock dams where I usually swam, I’ll never know.
LikeLike
What a fun poem — and what a precocious little traveler you were! Love the shape, too!
LikeLike
clever, and also a great way to engage, and such a good poem
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, pv.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love this little girl. She brought smiles. As did the “shape” of the poem. Thanks, Judy
LikeLike
Judy, I’m finding some stories I wrote during our timed writings on our retreats that I’m thinking will work as blogs. Looking forward to the next one.
LikeLike