'BELONGING' -- Kayak Memories as Hospital Antidote

Princeton Patch readers may remember that I've been 'out of commission' for some weeks, due to a hip (well, actually a femur) replacement. 

This poem arrived this morning, almost the four-week anniversary of the liberating, so-successful surgery.

It describes a meditation that sustained me in hospital -- and I hope it brings joy to Princeton Patch readers and lures you to kayak while there's still appropriate weather. 

B.H. - before hip - the latest I've ever kayaked was Nov. 23.  Now, I look forward to warm air and warm canal waters, utilizing this month-old 'kayaker's hip' (Dr. Gutowski is not kidding!) given me on the ninth of November.

(I have experienced each of these vignettes upon our canal south of Princeton Canoe and Kayak Rentals at Alexander Road.)

BELONGING

you are not in a hospital bed

hostage to wires and tubes

scurrying feet do not convey alarm

about blood, about saline levels

you are first on the water

on an impeccable Sunday

in the cardinal-hued kayak

this hip had so long forbidden

zephyrs trace lace signatures

along the limpid canal

in this kindness of sunlight

your stroke is subtle, so

that glistening turtles still

remain in serried rows

upon the broad rough log

it is the time of marsh mallows

-- pinks and the rare white

dazzling against August sky

you and your bright craft dwarfed

beneath pleated blooms

you know just where to search

for shy cardinal flowers

bursting like fireworks

in their shaded haven

your prow glides soundlessly

into a hidden cove

where a green heron performs

precise morning ablutions

he lifts iridescent feathers

one-by-one

flashing prismatic light

over dark water

you practice motionlessness

reverent in the presence

of this avian monarch

stroking anew,

you are led by one imposing cormorant

who maintains precise distance,

turning his double-crested head

first this way, then that

leading you well and truly

into the fullness of morning

the canal ahead seems papered

with mounds of hefty cumulus

your prow cleaves white volumes

that could be arranged by Constable

only to be disarranged

by you

where the doe teaches two fawns

which grasses make breakfast

you plunge paddle and hand

deep into canal water

chill drops trickle

over both sunwarmed legs

this deep turn

propels

back toward crisp reflections

of the white Alexander bridge

            it is not November

            you are not post-op

you are where you belong

out on the water

stroking

in marsh mallow time

                                                CAROLYN FOOTE EDELMANN 

                                                December, 2011