Reflection by Normand Carrey

Kevin had asked me to submit a poem and I chose Jack Gilbert’s Flying and Failing but I also thought, what the heck, I’ll throw in one of my own; so hopefully Kevin will not regret his decision. I’ve been working on the poem for ten years now, perhaps longer, it’s one  of those long suffering poems.  I enjoy swimming but I can’t help but panic a little when I start thinking about how deep the Lake may be; I try to use my rational mind but the fear is always there, nudging me.  And while the analogy between the water as a “Lake of twisting gravity” and the fear of drowning as opposed to water as the life-sustaining enveloping amniotic membrane may be obvious, I had not connected the two meanings together. It was not until I took my NBO and NBAS training and then dealing with babies emerging “fresh out of the womb” that suddenly the poem acquired that extra layer of meaning. I’ve been told that newborns naturally don’t have a fear of water until they get older.  

Normand Carrey is a psychiatrist in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Swimming the Consciousness of Long Lake by Normand Carrey

By Normand Carrey

There’s a lake close to city confines

where I swim easily shore to shore,

not beguiling like an English Channel or a Lake Ontario.

I’ve swam it, -have I told you this?- several times before.

I dip toe in water and start

without crossing myself, a superstition

drowning in possibilities always dwells

near the surface, drives the survival

through my rippling arms and legs,

and the avuncular breathing?

Muscular anxiety propels through me

and forward, and,… Relax, everything will be ok

one voice, I think my mother’s, tells me.

But I’m adult now, I can measure risk

Never leave the boat,

your uncle, he was their best swimmer

panicked, drowned, I think father’s,

bubbles up from the viscous depths

childhood’s pool of repressed lakes,

tangled in weeds near the shore.

The crossing is successful.

I emerge from the water,

stretch on the table rock

and let the granite sheet’s

villainous fingers massage

tetanic muscle, fraying nerve,

but I, for attention, compete against

you, the Lake, centre of twisting gravity.

I return later in the season,

end of a balmy Indian summer.

Water still warm, tempting me

Come in, but no one is around

last chance to swim this season,

should I still swim?

No one is around, Come in!

I’m an adult now, I can measure risk.

I start, reach the middle.

How many feet is deep?

You’re a good swimmer, but I’m not relaxing,

the avuncular breathing 

pressing hard for advantage

on its trail of ridden return,

under my chest wall’s gallop

And then I stop kicking.

Your successive warm amnion

waves, rock and soothe me

like inside, fruitful womb, expectant mother.

Momentarily I catch a glimpse, the allantois

the fluidity of the other side, the changing absolute.

I resurface to turn and go back.

In the distance the clasping limbs

of your shore trees, beach boulders

and tangle weeds round the sound, 

all proclaim in a soft parade 

Until the next crossing, our next visit.

Flying and Failing by Jack Gilbert

By Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.

It's the same when love comes to an end,

or the marriage fails and people say

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody

said it would never work. That she was

old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean

on the other side of the island while

love was fading out of her, the stars

burning so extravagantly those nights that

anyone could tell you they would never last.

Every morning she was asleep in my bed

like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back

through the hot stony field after swimming,

the sea light behind her and the huge sky

on the other side of that. Listened to her

while we ate lunch. How can they say

the marriage failed? Like the people who

came back from Provence (when it was Provence)

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,

but just coming to the end of his triumph.