We Will Swim Again

You began on foot:

there was your sandy toe

then, your trembling knee

that was the water

the horizon a sapphire belt

across the sky

you could touch with

your forefinger

here was your clattering heart

a hummingbird in your chest

now the water was up to your chin

your goggled eyes, aghast

for look, the bluest groper

there, the cuttlefish

further, a flock of stingray

beneath the world, this other wet one

your feet, now just occasional flippers

your existence a little blip

between the arms of this bay;

here is your freedom

sing it softly

like words of a prayer

you will need to come back to

to recall once, you were shaped afraid

before the summons of true terror

and someday

you will be changed again

beyond the fugitive alarms

of a life on land.