Friday, 2 April 2010
Out of the (loop: anag.)
Sonnet – Loss, Easter 2010
Because I am the sum of all I love
I am in mourning for this tiny death
And at the pool which saw my spirit move
Toss on its azure an encoded wreath.
I blame myself, I joined a hard elite,
Embraced an abstract petty discipline
Drawn by a fullfelt ardour to compete
With time and those whose natures could not win.
But I who overtook the frailer souls
Was overtaken by my own desire
A sickness stronger than my fevered goals
Left me land-locked, a hawk outside the gyre.
I’ll not repent, I’ll hear again the roar
Of discharged breath, of voices saying ‘More’
Novel progress 5/4/10. Ch. 19: 572 words. Chs. 1 - 18: 82,369 words. Comments: Hatch and Clare - early days.
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10 comments:
"Though I have swum my last measured my mile,
Maybe, I'll write a sonnet now and smile".
Wow, BB! That's good. So poignant and piercing, but not sad or maudlin, in the least.
You're really good at this.
BB. This is good and so poignant as Crow says. I take it swimming while on holiday is still an option? Also, are there no other pools you could try?
I have to say I drive a round trip of 40km to use a pool I like (so much for reducing my carbon footprint!). Our local pool is just too crowded.
Plutarch:
Not only posted with an unctuous smile,
But, withal, a conversational style.
A bit jagged, though.
The Crow: You mean being aggressive rather than maudlin? Finally, the real me is coming through. No more Mr Nice (Downtrodden) Guy.
HHB: I shall swim when opportunity presents itself, especially in the holiday villa in June. What I've had to give up is regular, twice-a-week swimming which not only provides exercise but (given that it was against the stopwatch) provided a sense of achievement. I tried the municipal pool (too crowded, not enough discipline), another leisure club (weird shaped pool - like a Romanesque window - which was too short and often crowded) until I found the most recent one which probably comes close to 40 km round trip. I have adopted a non-swimming alternative for a week now which I'll be posting about shortly.
Did I use the wrong word? I meant to say that, given the regret you experienced, your sonnet was more matter-of-fact than sentimental, a sort of "this is what it is; let's move on" expression of the event.
I like what you wrote, despite that I might have used the wrong word in expressing my delight.
What could the non-swimming alternative be? I am on tenterhooks.
The Crow: I didn't think you'd got it wrong; my question was more a confirmation of emphasis. The interesting thing is I started out on the sonnet feeling depressed (hence "in mourning") because this was a bad moment for me, a peculiarly bitter time in the early morning that followed the decision. I wanted to get this across. But as it turned out it proved better to summarise than to whinge. Verse frequently leads you into other areas (though till truthful) you could not have predicted.
RW (zS): I fear the new development will very quickly deflate your tenterhooks. Among other things a technical problem has arisen.
I am horrified to see that a surplus "my" crept into my otherwise immaculate couplet. I am never quite sure what "mea culpa" means, but I'll say it anyway.
I just read the first post about the demise of your regular swimming habit. Tom used to come swimming with me at a pool in Tewkesbury when we lived in Gloucestershire. It was full of kids and noisy, and the resultant hyperventilating and misery he experineced led him to get his heart and respiratory system checke dout by a specialist. In the end said specialist earned easy money by diagnosing that Tom simply hated the swimming pool, so that was the end of that. Now I swim alone in Moncontour's pretty little pool every couple of weeks. It's too small for serious length swimming, though I do crawl at least some of the time, but it's OK for me, and generally the roped off swimming lane, as opposed to the mucking about and bubble pool bit, is respected and not too crowded. I've found the young families on Sunday mornings are less annoying than the post-adolescent males and their informal water-polo on the adults only evening.
Anything given up like that occasions grief, and growing accustomed to grief doesn't seem to get one in training for it, does it?
But the discussion and then this poem have at least shown some good can come out of it...
Lucy: Tom's unpleasant experiences at Tewkesbury echo mine when I was teaching myself how to get the breathing right for crawl. After several lengths I often found myself visited by a species of panic attack, despite the fact I was swimming in water shallow enough to stand up in. I never understood this and eventually the tendency disappeared. But there is a vein of truth in the doctor's judgement; swimming pools are not enjoyable places and, as Plutarch says, sharing them with others doesn't enhance their attractions. Setting aside the aim of increasing one's competence the main benefit from swimming is that it doesn't strain muscles unduly, a great advantage for someone of my age. Giving it up was surprisingly traumatic but I have to say my blog circle rallied round and I was touched and grateful for this.
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