Albert's Landing

I've taken to swimming Little Albert's Landing,

From jetty to jetty in the late afternoon sun.

I can do it one way,

In one hundred modified backstrokes,

More or less,

Always keeping the sunlight in my face

And the empty hill that cradled the Bell estate on my left,

Gardiner's Island out across the bay on my right.

Literally no one on the beach or in the water for that matter

Except me, thousands of sand eels and wild-eyed baby blues,

A family of piping plovers pecking at the tide line and an osprey circling

And waiting, waiting, waiting.

I listen to my breathing, then, as I swim,

I listen to my heart beat, the sound of the water as it swirls about me,

The bright light dancing on the water,

Free-floating in this eclectic sea of hope, even as I struggle to accept these forces

That bind me to this earth,

To this pulsing sea, to this surging life around me,

To my own cell of pain.

Later, lying on a flat rock, giving my back it's heat and hardness, yes,

A man can be blind in so many ways,

Leaving his life to a future that will never come,

Circling and waiting, waiting, waiting

While all of the world pounds and swells beneath him,

Calling his name softly in its profound eternity.