First Splash

Listen, an angelic coo, as coolwater rings drift outward from the source. From a high place it is a cool silver breeze, the high pitched chant of young choir boys under vaulted ceilings. The brown, rippling shape glides through glass, leaving phosphorescent ribbons curling and mincing behind it.
Closer, the golden brown arm, like violin strings, stretcheding sunny and warm sounds through soft silver light.
The crash where heels lift, the nose wheels upside down towards submerged tiles, toes swing then meet the wall, a momentary whiteness as they press, and the body is launched along the dark black line for another length in the swimming pool.
They swim like fish, in a fishbowl for the soul. What better place to have the soul explore its own light in the emptiness, absence of sound or distraction, than this chessborard environment.
The turns of each swimmer is slow and sad, droplets clatter onto brick and stone like dishes, bubbles murmur and gossip ass they trail through knees and toes and the sensual ivory curve of ankles.
This symphony of light, white planets and implosions, the cool lullaby of threshing and spinning...yes this beauty and poetry in the pool is fleeting.
Really it is nothing but the chopping of wood, the hard acquisition of strenth and purchase in this slippery pond. Metallic blade digging into wooden fibres, fins, blading into sharp pyramids of water. This laborious hacking of blade on surface transform eventually the golden body into a rippling mechanism, muscles and eyes that drip with mercury and drops of sun. This is the world of the swimmer. Dazzling, but hard, and never ever warm. It is like ice in the noon sun, like the last few steps of Everest. Deadly, and asphyxiated, but beautiful. This is the story of what I saw when I was one of the swimmers.