Just I - All Alone
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This took place when I was 18 in my first year of college, during Semester Abroad to Madrid. I had gained at least ten pounds on all the yummy Spanish foods and pastries. My little group named me "Miss Spain" for my great love of that country and the way I documented all the things I did there and for the many pictures I took. At this time of my life I was also able to visit Morocco, Rome, Israel, Athens, Paris and London. I doubt I will ever have the chance to do this kind of thing again, so I am so grateful that in my youth I had this opportunity to know the land I had studied about in high school when I took Spanish classes and later majored in Spanish at BYU.
I swam inside the Mediterranean Sea.
In what would be my Glory Days, off Valencia’s coast,
I dipped my foot in freezing water;
withdrew it; then dipped it in again.
(I’d always had my own will even then,
just didn’t realize how strong it was).
Disappointingly, my one day to enjoy the sea was cold.
I still cannot recall if others from my group
ventured out there with me and stayed for long
although I remember a few of them were shivering
riding on the bus to go back home.
Oh, it was so very long ago!
Nor can I recollect the suit I wore
(I do know I was plump then;
"Gordita” the men called out to me).
The season - was it early spring or still the winter?
And what specific color claimed the sea that day
along my beloved Iberia’s splendid shore?
Of that afternoon, I remember only this:
Aimlessly I let my body float first in one direction,
then another; keeping my eyes always on land,
my body numb, accustomed to the freeze.
No one was around me; I drifted, sometimes nearly straying. . .
just I - all alone -
letting my whole self go. . . for maybe 40 minutes.
It was something I felt that I just had to do
so that years later, standing here today
(“Gordita” frozen deep inside me)
I can say that I swam in that mighty, ancient sea.
Copyright © Andrea Dietrich | Year Posted 2011
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