Swimming

This is the first day
when everything is possible,

Time is at my command
rather than carelessly running ahead,

I am caught in Utopia:
a nowhere space, in-between,

Once the magic number of the first
elapses, time will resume,

But for now, I am weightless,
free to watch

The sky changing colour
to match the slowly fading

Flowers on my table, their
perfume growing stronger

And moulding into a stink,
a whiff of their decaying

Beauty is echoed midwater
in the seaweed and the salt engulfing my

Body in a new year embrace
that seeks to perversely evade

The presence of decay, and time,
and space,

And the necessity of the
second day

When the newness fades and
I return to my body’s place

In the world, where I want too
much, expect too much and

Grasp for so much in the
next 364 days of the year.

* * *

Happy New Year, I hope we swim gently through this year.

I leave you with words wiser than my own, from Monica Dickens’ Mariana:

When you were born, you were given a trust of individuality that you were bound to preserve. The things that happened in your life, however closely connected with other people, developed and strengthened that individuality. You become a person.

To become a person? Sounds like a plan.