I haven’t written a real poem
in at last a decade
prose, especially fiction, has taken the fore
plus relocating to a remote Maine island
do I even consider the photography

How else do you think
other than by talking to yourself even silently
or through the fingers or feet

I’ve long preferred instrumental music, abstract
or airs in languages I don’t understand
and usually forget the lyrics and lines in scores
I’ve sung in concert

So I was swimming a half-mile a day
before the pandemic but haven’t been back
in deep water, fresh or surf, indoor or out till today,
my first venture in a little-known river pooling
too rocky for laps but perfect for extending myself
in the familiar chill under a cloud-strewn afternoon sky

yes, it’s glorious and refreshing
in a way I discovered my first year after college
in hippie abandon or the New England coast
and Dover’s Olympic pool later
it’s the sunlight and breeze
stretching above, around

a call to attend to my rooting as well
in meditation, prayer, Scripture, favored poets
all as seemingly impractical