Sky Swimmer

She swam in her sleep, the slap of her arms against

the dusking lake waters. I stood on the banks

of her dream near the trickle creek

that fed Hiawatha basin, amid scattered cattails and

frog smell and skitter-legged bugs,

to call her name.

She swam alone

gliding through obsidian waters,

that doubled the ripe moon,

her skin, fish pale and fin slippery,

under the nightlight.

We cried for her, all of us abandoned on the grassy shore, fearful

under the willow, weeping

for her return. A squall-startled loon flushed

and flapped from its nest to

haunt our unease with its ghost call.

She dove deep to disappear

far below seen waters to where

swaying weeds stilled

and the lake bottom seeped.

We held our breaths and counted

until at last she broke the moon, gasping

before she sank, silent as a stone.

It was no less surprising than if gravity

had suddenly lost its hold and released her

drifting upward toward a starless sky.

Note: I once saw an ancient painting that depicted sleeping Sufi mystics who had mastered the practice of sharing a collective dream. I loved that idea. For a while, I had several dreams of my mother swimming in a lake. She didn't know how to swim. My five siblings, our dad, and I were all decent swimmers but our mother swore she'd sink and never waded more than hip deep in the lake. But in these dreams, she was always gliding off into water to escape -- us, her life, the world -- leaving her kids on shore.