Month of Poetry, 2014, Day 30: Morning Swim, Last Day, and Redux

Morning Swim
(with immense gratitude to the KVYMCA and Total Immersion)

Early in the morning
--though usually not early enough--
I slip into water
just a little too cold
and glide beneath
the surface
trying to mold my body
into a vessel.
Each length a new focal point--
   hanging head
   marionette arm
   patient catch
Each focal point a mantra
that lifts from my mind
the burden of its days.
Is it possible for water
to save you from drowning?
This cold, chlorinated prism has.
Each flick of my foot-turned-fish-tail
propels me across the pool
into my life.


Month of Poetry Wrap-Up

Thanks for sticking with me, those of you who are still around, while I indulged myself in a little word play this month. I managed to write a poem for almost every day (only missing four), although a couple of those were back-dated (shh). Two of those poems were revisions of poems I started drafting months (in one case) or years (in the other) ago, but the rest were written new and fresh in response to what's going on in my life now. I enjoyed it a lot. It was a very different experience from last time I did a month of poetry, three years ago, but I was in a very different emotional space then. It's just a really nice experience to sit down for five minutes at the end of the day and put into words the most significant aspect of your day--perhaps it is not the stuff of great poetry, but that wasn't really the point. It turns out that the hardest time for writing the poems has been weekends--being with kids nonstop is not conducive to self reflection. I need a bit of total solitude to spool out a few words (in the car at baseball practice works, or on the couch once I coax everyone, including the Man of the House, into bed at night). My poetry style, it seems, is basically super-flash nonfiction with line breaks. I'm not sure that actually counts as a poetry style. I had intended to educate myself on meter and form and learn more about what really makes a poem a poem, but I didn't quite get around to that. Next time (or before next time). Actually, it's been such a good meditative, calming, clarifying experience that I might try to keep it up (don't worry, gentle reader, I will spare you the results, and keep them to the pages of my journal).

What are your thoughts on poetry? Do you read it? Write it? What do you like (formal? free verse?)? Are you like my son who rejects any poem that doesn't rhyme?