In Languedoc we ploughed this turquoise field
Then left our sillons, those seductive forms,
Transformed into a glaring sine-wave yield,
Transformed again as Hockney’s charm disarms.
Again we dive, drop, ease our bodies down
Churning the water into frantic dance
Destroying patterns from which rules have flown
Delighting in the molecules of chance.
It’s evening now, and symmetry’s in place,
The pool’s a solid, plane-smoothed block of blue
Swallows and martins, unaware of space,
Pluck tunes that spread as circles touched anew.
The circles widen as the maths decrees
The birds fly curves of consanguinities.
LANGUEDOC RELEASE The others, who’ve occupied the pool much of the afternoon, discreetly retire to the loungers and I’m in the water alone to swim my thirty, fifty, hundred lengths. An untrammeled kilometre without the fret of having to compete for a lane, of worrying what a stray hand may touch.
But my orange tee-shirt, worn as sun-protection, is starting to stretch and billows up at the turns. Hardly hydro-dynamic. I buy another at Hyper-U, size XXL, and make four small slots in the bottom hem. Sweat accumulating in my eyes I edge-stitch these slots and then pass two lengths of tape into the tubular hems. The tapes are long enough to encircle my barrel-like thighs and are secured by bows. The tee-shirt cannot now ride up my body and I am able to do one of the things I came to France for
