How Swimmers
Dream Art and Poetry on the Glory of Swimming
Illustrated by Susan Baur Poems by Mary Swope, Alice Kociemba, Barbara Hill, Mallie Boman, Gloria Monaghan, Jean Baur, Nina Carroll, Kathleen Casey, Elizabeth Mt. Holly, Betty Jameson
How Swimmers
Dream
Illustrated by Susan Baur Poems by Mary Swope, Alice Kociemba, Barbara Hill, Mallie Boman, Gloria Monaghan, Jean Baur, Nina Carroll, Kathleen Casey, Elizabeth Mt. Holly, Betty Jameson
For all who count swimming as an essential part of life.
When you enter the water, something like metamorphosis happens. Leaving behind the land, you go through the looking-glass surface and enter a new world. Roger Deakin, Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain
Old Japanese texts teach that swimming in freezing water cultivates perseverance; submergence leads to patience; diving fosters bravery. Floating of the body leads to serenity of the mind. The mastery of rescue and resuscitation is a sign of wholehearted benevolence. From Bonnie Tsui, Why We Swim
The Back Story: Every night I still put myself to sleep by pretending to swim. At first, I replayed actual swims, one night slipping through the soft waters of a Cape Cod pond to count the turtles I saw below me, another night returning to the rough and tumble waters of Buzzards Bay or Vineyard Sound. In August, I pictured myself swimming at night through phosphorescent noctiluca. It was like swimming through the Milky Way. Now I don’t limit myself to memory. At night I swim through tall trees as if in a forest of oak-leafed kelp. I join jam-packed schools of fish. I float slowly across the moon. I swim everywhere.
When I turned my swimming dreams into collages, I asked poets to write a poem that would expand the picture. Dreamers all, they took off like shooting stars and gave each collage meanings I had not imagined.
So here is How Swimmers Dream, art and poetry that not only dive into the glory of swimming, but also celebrate the sensuous appeal of water, and reveal the magic that always happens when you jump into anything as if your life depends on it.
Master Swimmer For Robert Barlow: June 26, 2010 You swim through life the way you move each morning, arm over arm, through the waters of Vineyard Sound. You take its salty liquor in your arms, enter it fully, delighting in easy command, your body’s flow. Watching the ever-shifting watery scene below, you enjoy the stroke and rhythm, freedom from tension, thought; observer, athlete, and master that you are. Only the stinging jellyfish alarm you; flotillas of tentacles pulsing in the currents raise welts on your tanned skin, could steal your breath and threaten your control. So when the sun and Gulf Stream currents bring the jellies, you don your nylon ‘sting suit,’ seek clear waters further from shore. Twice, proud of your prowess, you swam from Nobska Point four miles to the Vineyard. And didn’t you crow then, to succeed once more! I miss you, Bob, in these waters, remembering the time when both of us in goggles, peering down at sea stars, seaweeds, minnows there below us, swam into one another blindly as, arm over arm, we both embraced the element called life. Mary Swope, Falmouth, MA
Bourne Bridge Not the hard rain the rivers crave, not the downpour to quench the forest floor, just a light mist, on almost empty roads, as I’m entombed in gray, the only sound an intermittent shush— wipers clearing windshield; this quiet is pleasing, a monochromatic alone, when suddenly the overcast lightens from charcoal to dove, then splits into strands of mauve, salmon, rose, and the bridge ahead, luminous, wrapped in a pale blue shawl, each raindrop clings, glistening in pure light that’s always there even when hidden— I’ve come home. Alice Kociemba, North Falmouth, MA
As Long As I Can See As long as I can see I’ll be alright. I will remember the vastness of great things.
the sky
The sky which today is blueprint blue but nothing like paper or buildings or men with pencils. I float
on the ocean sister to the sky. They speak to each other in winds, currents, fogs, and certain birds.
I stretch
out my arms. Who can embrace the sky? At my core, a great calm no fear of shadows.
Barbara Hill, Pawcatuck, CT
Spin Cycle Twined in the helix of myself I spiral in an ocean of sky, past rock, with unbroken dreams of time and space. My daughter calls from another zone, admonishes, be safe. As the earth rotates away from the waning moon, I dream the child I was --- circle my father’s death, add appendixes and rewrite the relativity of the man, as Einstein might have stalked the calculus of space/time. Which father holds me --- the one who lifts the child onto his shoulders in a tent erected for salvation, or the one with the heavy hand and righteous strap? At milestones 8, 18, 28 I thought his death a gift. My mother bids me from the grave, fly and I prepare for my own mortality and forgive. It is neither time nor space that heals, but the rearrangement of atoms immeasurable, mysterious. Mallie E. Boman, New York
In the Pipewort Under the surface of the pond, past the soft bulrush, through the pipewort, I pull and push the water back gaze at the purple blossoms and green stems and remember my favorite bathing suit purple trim, soft green bikini at the pool where I swam laps never thinking about the cement floor.
I swim past turtles hiding under branches their ancient faces reflect demi-gods or old men and women who smile and tell us the world will revolve, and we will change into keepers of the pond; algae, sea grass, small turtles live under rocks for light and sky their sweet air; a kingdom of sunlight on the pond. Gloria Monaghan, Boston, MA
The Pond If I were Diving Or rising Between the arms Of a sunken branch, If I were That free, If breath underwater Was gills And bubbles, And my arms extended Wide to embrace Such fish-floating Exuberance, Then I would never Look at a pond Again as a simple thing-I'd know the depth Of something That inhabits there. Jean Baur, Stonington, CT
what a turtle sees not so much trunks of fallen trees but a swimmer’s torso and limbs instead of jutting up from pond’s floor dangling down from surface arms flailing in vegetation voraciously nibbled by mallards and swans lily pad strings veiling a body submerged in deep green looking like a marionette controlled by the frogs aloft on stones as the snapping turtle smiles lipless at the irony of the scene divining the fish who curiously peer up at white whales of tank-suited swimmers arms and legs in tango tangling among aquatic weeds peering with goggled eyes wriggling their toes then screaming underwater not expecting to be nipped by the snapper startling dipping geese and the otter to wonder who’s the intruder in our pond Nina Carroll, East Falmouth, MA
Meditation how to float between two worlds with face basking in sun so even if eyes close passing clouds are seen underside curves of the skin-suited body along with rooted plants, reflections, and dreams are jostled and bounced by berries in the shallow bog how to rest between sky and water with their shades of blue and red all a-shimmer all released in light how to enter the infinite realm where at this moment turtles splash blackbirds conk-la-ree and the rustle of glassy dragonfly wings grace the moment Kathleen Casey, East Falmouth, MA
Swimming is a rite of passage, a crossing of boundaries: the line of the shore, the bank of the river, the edge of the pool, the surface itself. You see and experience things when you’re swimming in a way that is completely different from any other. Your sense of the present is overwhelming. Roger Deakin, Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain
Suited Up She's put me out here-Is this a joke? I'm frozen stiff A blot of color In a white landscape. Does she think I'll dry, Or is this a dare-A way to tell winter You can push your way in The way you always do, Kill the plants, Make the deer huddle in the woods, But I, the turtle swimmer, Will not stop for you-I will find water And the turtles will reappear. Elizabeth Mt. Holly, Hadlyme, CT
The Winter Dream In a formfitting suit, her body svelte and strong, with arms stretched upwards and fingers slightly interlocked almost as if in prayer, with her head crowned by a close-fitting cap and goggled-eyes closed in concentration, she resembles an avian goddess silhouetted against a blank sky as she prepares for her dive. Snow dusts its white beauty making a sleepy shush in this cold realm, while the diver rises spirit-like amid scraggly-limbed pitch pines that wear shaggy bark and bristly needles, as they guard the ice-covered pond, a quiet place now, where snappers and musk burrow below in soft sediments, and as fish gather in deep pools to take their winter rest . Kathleen Casey, East Falmouth, MA
Small Marks in the stillness of growing old I’ve chosen to be ashes, to raise my final fist— “this is where I belong.” night after night the ocean calls to me. I’ll one day roll and toss dream swim climb and dive. I’ll one day breathe goodbyes and weave small marks soon to be erased by stinging sand. I will be home then in the rolling melody of forever. Betty Jameson, Falmouth, MA
Poet Biographies Mary Swope: Having spent every summer of her childhood in Woods Hole where the sound of the Nobska foghorn put her to sleep at night, it is not surprising that her poetry often focuses on water, sailing, and swimming. “Master Swimmer” was written in memory of a dear friend. Alice Kociemba’s “Bourne Bridge” is the title poem for her poetry collection (Turning Point, 2016), reprinted with permission. Her poetry celebrates the ordinary moment. She is the founding director of Calliope Poetry for Community, and lives in North Falmouth with her husband, Rich Youmans. Barbara Hill: I was instantly drawn to this challenge. My first two lines come from something I heard Yoko Ono say in an interview and that was my starting point. My book of poetry is "A Few Sharp and Glamorous Words.” Mallie Boman:This poem came as a series of swim strokes, a collage of experiences. My own writing career feels like such a journey, with laps of poetry, theatre, and filmmaking being the oceans I dream in. www.bambooandbone.com Gloria Monaghan:I have always been inspired by water, oceans, ponds, lakes and swimming pools. I love the colors in each place. Water, for me, is transformational and healing. We all need to protect our special sanctuaries. In the water, I feel free and strong. Jean Baur fell in love with poetry in seventh grade and has been writing ever since. She's more of a floater than a swimmer and is often seen in the cove near her home drifting in her inner-tube. Nina Carroll MD is creating a pleasurable life of gardening and entertaining at her home “Swans’ Pond”, boating, and reflecting on her travel and sailing adventures around the world. She enjoys confecting poetry from myriads of fragments collected over decades. Kathleen Casey: The natural world with its seasonal gifts has always intrigued me. I found Susan’s art to be an invitation to discover more about our local pond ecosystems and to stretch my imagination by adopting a diver’s point of view. Elizabeth Mt. Holly is a nom de plume for a shy poet. She likes to think of herself as a humming bird: quick, attracted to flowers, impossible to capture. Betty Jameson: My poem “Only Small Marks” speaks of the ocean’s call and my eventual and final swim. Now that I’m eighty, the call grows louder—“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only at night. —Edgar Allen Poe You hold in your hands a gift for swimmers. Here are collages that capture the joy of swimming-as-flying, swimming-as-exploring, and swimming as a way to peace and wisdom. Here too are poems that praise all brave swimmers and the waters they swim in.
Susan Baur is the author of the Turtle Sisters series of books for children. She is a retired psychologist who lives in Falmouth and swims all over Cape Cod.
www.theturtlesisters.com A Turtle Press Book Book Design: Nina Spaziani