Poem: Freestyle, on the first of Tishri

The metaphor here is the pool, regular

and deep as the tradition itself. First I float,

still and buoyant in what I don’t

accept. Then I shatter the surface, a scholar

dissecting text not to destroy but to enrich,

a farmer plowing and disking the earth

before planting. On land, I forget breath’s

noisy ball bearings, the flutter kick’s

fringes blazing like tangible will. I imagine

that faith is nothing but a grudging promise

of repetition, like these laps, until this

continual splash in the mind begins —

not with grievance or prayer

but as gasp, a momentary bargain struck with the air.

This poem was previously published in “This Close to the Earth” (University of Arkansas Press, 1992).

Enid Shomer is a widely published poet and fiction writer. Her most recent book is the novel “The Twelve Rooms of the Nile” (Simon & Schuster, 2012), which National Public Radio selected as one of the top six historical novels of 2012.