Here’s another poem that evolved from the oppositifying of a bit of a Taylor Mali poem. I shared the Mali passage, etc. here. Now, I don’t want to sound all high and mighty, because I love dolphins. Honestly, if I had a chance to swim with dolphins or kiss them at Sea World or whatever, I’d do it. But, growing up in Florida, I loved seeing dolphins occasionally when we’d spend the day at the beach. And one of my favorite childhood memories is of my family swimming out past the breaking waves, into the swells, and to the sandbar that had formed a few hundred yards offshore (felt like miles). And a pod of dolphins swam right through us. That feeling of fierce wildness and abandon still calls to me.
You can click the earlier link to see the stanza I oppositified, and here’s draft 1, which was inspired by the phrase “dolphin train” in that exercise, and which incorporates my childhood memory. The only change I made was splitting it into two stanzas…
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One Response
Mmmm… love this one, Laura! What an amazing experience that must have been for you as a child. I can’t even imagine… although I did kayak past my first manatees a few weeks ago and that was also wonderful. They definitely didn’t move with wild abandon, however. LOL.