Swimmer

Eric Zener

Swimmer

I.

Observe how he negotiates his way

With trust and the least violence, making

The stranger friend, the enemy ally.

The depth that could destroy him gently supports him.

With water he defends himself from water.

Danger he leans on, rests in. The drowning sea

Is all he has between himself and drowning.

II.

What lover ever lay more mutually

With his beloved, his always-reaching arms

Stroking in smooth and powerful caresses?

Some drown in love as dark water, and some

By love are strongly held as the green sea

Now holds the swimmer. Indolently he turns

To float – the swimmer floats, the lover sleeps.

Robert Francis

 

The stranger friend, the enemy ally”, what a marriage of opposites. “The drowning sea is all he has between himself and drowning.” Every line brims with paradox. “The depth that could destroy him gently supports him.” I shake my head over this. I mean – swimming! How often have we thought through this thing we do? What dark magic is at work here? And why does it take a poem to show us the unearthly strangeness of an every day activity? It reminds me a little of death. Always with us, like an element, always working against us, and yet also the thing awakening us to life.  Somehow, we need to swim within this and allow the paradox to make us buoyant. "With trust and the least violence."