Friday Poem: Drowning

Drowning

I

Under water where the deeper depths are
down where breathing doesn't happen for me
a slow motion is movement, like waves breaking.

None of us knows motion like this, poised, delicate,
like a plant growing out of the centre of it all.
I see shores and I see lands, distant, grey,
like some forgotten dream, like some ancient tale
telling of dark and desperately heroic deeds.

I see the green and the blue-green
as depth becomes a home for me.
I see only as far as a hand can touch
as deep becomes dark, I drown and I die.

II

Seas are tied to the shores
and sounds are there like waves on the beach.
Always motion, the sea gets restless
and churns, uncomfortable in its bed
unable to sleep easily, haunted by the moon.
It moves and grabs and changes
altering the constraining landscape
taking bites from each taunting cliff
and spitting out the taste of unpleasant dry land.
It takes all that is alien to it
and only reluctantly, grudgingly returns
when the tide tires of its toys.

III

I go back down to the shore
only to watch the body, as the sea
throws it disdainfully back, unwanted,
dismissively on to the beach
as the waves wash it clean
for the very last time.