04/09/2018 Sharon Metzler-Dow

04/09/2018  Sharon Metzler-Dow hosted by Jim

Sharon Metzler-Dow is an internationally published poet and writer.  Her poetry was published in the anthology Eternal Snow on world tour, 2017-2018. Based on her research in France, her poem “Beyond the Cave Wall,” was published in 2016 for international readership on The Leakey Foundation website, a major global anthropology organization. She was the 2014 Conference Poet for the annual International Conference for Women's Reproductive Health. Her poems have been published in Bay Area Generations chapbook and The Berkely Daily Planet.  Her story, “Banda! in Kathmandu” published in the memoir anthology Subject to Change. She performed her short story, “Wait 'Til You See What's Next!” at San Francisco's Book Passage. Sharon is collecting her poems and short stories for book publication about her adventures in South Korea, China, India, Nepal, France, and Amsterdam.  She lives in Oakland.  

At age 15 Lynne Cox swam across the English Channel and shattered the men’s and women’s world records swimming from England to France in 9 hours, 57 minutes.

                   Nightswimming

It’s another year

and time to swim the English Channel.

Safety boats at distance follow 

but not near.  At anytime a shark

can mistake us for a seal and devour

our whole estate for his next…

we wonder what’s nipping at our heels.

Higher, lower, faster, slower, 

night’s tides test our willpower.

We navigate by watching moving sign-posts 

in the black firmament above and below

and by currents pushing our back

then our toes

for good or detriment.

Hold onto the stars to avoid vertigo!

Liquid laps our skin, enfolds us.

Phosporescence scintillates.

Neon prosecco. Firefly fish.

Blue tears and blue comets.

Nightswimming

from Dover to Calais

treacherous and luminous.

A lot can happen

swimming to another continent.

40,000 armstrokes.

It’s all in the mind.

                                                                   Sharon Metzler Dow    ©  2018