Swimming In The Rain

I swim in the rain, alone
in the gray place
where lake and sky meet.
Thousands of bright drops
drum the waves, and disappear,
leaving radiant silver bubbles,
which burst
as more drops take their place.

I'm glad no one is with me,
surrounded by the numberless lamps
of this liquid city I have never seen before,
whose residents turn on, turn off,
their beckoning lights -
signaling the stars.


Swimming Into Winter

As winter approaches,
I often swim without a life guard
or even a friend watching from the shore,
returning to stones, sand,
lake weed, fish, the sky.

I know it's foolish to stay so long
in October water,
but I'm swimming out of my daily life,
out of myself,
losing heat to the source, my heart to the universe,
until I'm a mere echo of the soft lake water -
which holds me back from nothing.

Freya Manfred lives with her husband, screenwriter Thomas Pope, and her twin sons, on Bass Lake, Wisconsin. Her published poetry books are: A Goldenrod Will Grow (Groveland Press), Yellow Squash Woman (Thorp Springs Press), American Roads (Overlook/Viking), Flesh and Blood (Red Dragonfly Press), and My Only Home (Red Dragonfly Press). Her poetry has also appeared in over 75 reviews and magazines and over 25 anthologies. Her half hour poem for television: The Madwoman and the Mask appeared on KTCA-TV, Channel 2, in 1991. Her literary memoir, Fredrick Manfred: A Daughter Remembers (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1999) was nominated for a Minnesota Book Award and an Iowa Historical Society Benjamin F. Shambaugh Award. She has just finished a novel called Tall.