Love & Swimming: For Helena, From Eric

For Helena, From Eric

We wake up every extremely early morning

With the cool breeze, the sun not yet shinning,

When rest and sleep are still inviting.

Some consider this ludicrous, others simply revolting.

Still we get up and get squared away

To prepare for what we do four hours a day

No exceptions, even during a holiday--

On that matter, we rarely have a say.

Often, the water we swim in is cold

Yet, without hesitations, we plunge in before we're told

Not simply to avoid a coaches' scold;

Experience and nature made us completely bold.

While some are motivated by glory,

As others are driven by duty,

My motivations to swim I discuss rarely

Since it involves a lovely, fair lady.

This lady I cannot begin to describe;

Hers is a beauty radiating both in-and outside.

She does not know, to her never have I confide

That I struggle with emotions I dare not unhide.

She has enchanted me, body, soul and heart.

Is it possible that I am a victim of Cupid's dart?

Yet, as I do nothing, it may end before it's start;

Lost she will be; the lady whose beauty shames art.

She was the reason why I got up every morning;

The only reason I cared about thinking.

While I am no longer competitively swimming,

She'll always be mine as I dream while sleeping.

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Take Your Mark!