Day #78
The scouts are rowdy again as they parade to the pool.
They skip in circles around me and make a game
out of who can convince me to run with them.
Today is hard, though. My mother has told me
I’m not welcome home. I have a lesson to learn,
she says, though which lesson that is I am not sure.
Little sisters of sunlight, I feel your feet fluttering.
I can hear the water between your hands
when you each, finally, make your first dive. I am there
to hold your belly above the water’s lips as you learn
the nature of your own buoyancy, as I see how free
I should also be. Your little fingers thrash
for purchase where there is none, and I recognize
what it means to trust the body when emptiness lies
beneath you; to let your lungs fill with nothing but daylight.
How do you do it, little scout? How do you bask
under weightlessness and know you are safe?
You tether me to a place where water speaks
the language of wildhood in gifts of breath we give each other.
Can you cloak me in wind and convince me I am human?
