Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Mr. Hall

Mr. Hall

The alligators
nipped my toes
while I learned to swim.
But the teeth
felt like fingers,
and with time
the predators
returned to their form
as ants,
that my instructor 
embellished.
Soon I learned
to cross the sterile pool,
but then knew 
that no river
or moat
or ocean channel
would ever contain me
again.

-Robert L. Jackson III




13 comments:

  1. I love this. Once we cross that divide, we know we can never again be contained. Awesome.

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  2. I'm confused by the word "sterile," but maybe you mean it as positive? I first got a picture of leaving the wild and swimming in a chlorine pool. On second reading, I bless an instructor who reduced dangers to their proper size, allowing the narrator to gain independence! (Still, I wouldn't swim in a pool with alligators! Ants, yes. Spiders, maybe.)

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  3. I'm not sure, but I don't think most ants know how to swim? So I am also confused, but love the ideas of those little "blue eyes," with their little life jackets, swimming and biting toes. Learning to swim is a feat to be proud of, for sure! A boy that can swim will not be contained!

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  4. I, too, am a bit confused by the sterile pool, but applaud your getting to the far side and independence!

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  5. Yes, this is true independence!

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  6. What a brilliant poem of independence, being strong enough to deal with the most fiersome opposition to assert yourself.

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  7. Very clever expression of independence

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  8. This is awesome ... especially the second line, where I first misread "nippled." :)

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  9. Love how fear of water gradually fell off letting the narrator taste independence and taking him to the boundless.

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  10. Swimming is the ultimate freedom experience in life.You cannot fly naturally like a bird but you can swim like a fish.We have sharks instead of alligators nipping at our feet....unfortunately it has become only too real now since it had been made illegal to cull them:)

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  11. your instructor had a vivid imagination that was passed on during your swimming lessons! I loved the watery flow of the poem and the way the images transformed over time

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