Starfish

I learned to swim in the swallows
of sanity, taught myself to float
stretched out like a starfish to
keep as much of me as possible
in the layer of light on top where
I could see the sky

I drifted in the peace for as long
as I could, sensing perhaps there would be no turning back, no getting
out as others did when it got too cold or deep

It became impossible to deny
a force as strong and elemental as
gravity dragging me down, breath
trapped, heart-pounding, my eyes
fixed on the sky until it is a speck
of blue and then gone,
swallowed by darkness

trapped beyond reach, I learned to breathe underwater, lessons by
drowning, year after year until those
fathomless depths became a home
I accepted but did not choose,
travelling between worlds like a
watery Persephone, one day
surfacing, gasping for air and love
and mercy, savouring sunshine and
solid ground until the winch pulls me
down, each winter I sink, each spring,
I return, never one without the other

I don't know who taught me how to
Survive to grow gills, to know the bottom is not what I deserve, maybe
it was God, maybe an ancestor who
knew the ways of deep water, but now
when I swim in the summer sun,
riding waves gently on the lake I love,
I give thanks and practice how to float
like a star, always reaching for peace.

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