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.
