Did I truly
Make off with your ebullience
Hijack your bounce and verve
Is it true that only the downtrodden
Was left behind
The cast aside and trapped free thinker
Under sodium skies
With winds set down for late evening
As though the truth of one
Can be at one with one
Who sits somewhere in transit
Over the distant darker blues
Underfoot undulations
Night visit to neighbours; harmonious
Welcome, careful journey of love
I drink my Northumbrian water
Hear you talk of limestone dissolved
See you swim; in river, loch and cave
I was on the edge of sleep
But I have been awoken by painters
Poets and writers talking of wild swimming
I will buy Hughes’ book of the river
Paddle again in the streams of my childhood
Tingle my extremities with the touches of water
Everyone celebrates Roger Deakin
He was infectious with his desire
To let one share in his excitement
Though boy o boy we didn't expect
The skinny dipping
Or did we
Intoxicated by water, water on skin
Skin glides through water, intense
The immersive other place of water
It was one line, spoken with little
Conviction; five words, no more
No less: "come and see me later"
In the past I would have been ecstatic
Right away my whole body
Would have trembled
My mind in an instant
Would have been fuzzy
Frazzled to the core
Then I would be hanging
On to her every word
Instead it is the swallows
& gliding house-martins
That bring a smile
To my less tired eyes
I don't think of her on waking anymore
Which says something I suppose
About the passing of time