Momentary Silence
Ears equalize on descent as the passing shoreline
recedes and the brightness of day succumbs
to filtered light, eyes adjusting to another world.
Breath calm and regulated, focus turns
to the passing terrain. Mindful of hazards,
eyes scan the river bottom for items of significance
only to the diver, any thought of value long lost
to those who lost them. In a silence broken
only by that rhythmic breathing, thoughts rise
from their compartments. The day’s events,
concerns, are processed, consideration given
to matters whose weight seems less, floating
away within the surrounding peacefulness.
As the constraints of time are felt, the world
above calls. Rising to the light of day, willing
to face its demands, that silence is left behind,
the moment of solitary existence now past.
While scuba diving during the 1980s and 1990s, more than a hundred
of my dives were done while drifting with the current in the Niagara River.
(With the arrival of zebra mussels in the 1990s, visibility was 20 – 40 feet.)
This is my response to Poetics – Solitude, from Björn at dVerse Poets Pub.
rivrvlogr 
Wow! The words, images, and format work well for a powerful poem!
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Thank you. 🙂
I had to visualize 20+ years ago, a nice moment of solitude, in itself.
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Great recall!
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The silence of being underwater must be rather profound like the darkness of a cave.
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It is, Frank. And some of the wreck diving I did was like being in a cave.
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Wow- you describe the experience so well Ken!
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🙂 Thank you, Linda. 🙂
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you’ve captured the enchanting silence-that-isn’t-quite beneath the surface ~
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All around, in fact. Thank you.
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Good catch, good capture. Until recently I had not the slightest idea how important diving was to you. When I was young I only did skin and snorkle. Caught a few abalone, witnessed the turquoise beauty of La Jolla outside the cove, but never went much deeper than ten or twelve feet for thirty or forty seconds.
And never, ever, dove in a river. My currents were the coast, bending around the point of right angles and gyre current, here at the head of a great, deep canyon of the sea.
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Thanks, Daniel. Most of my diving was in “cold” water, but I did dive at Bonaire and Cozumel. Diving in the Niagara was a “lazy” dive. Once we kicked out 100 yards on the surface, we let the current do the work. Timing an exit could be tricky, though. Some days the current might be swifter, or carry us more to the middle of the river, so that rising to see the shore is farther away – or sometimes too soon – meant a hard kick in to shore.
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I love how you captured this… i have never dived but it sounds like a perfect moment of solitude
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It can be. Thank you, Björn.
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The way you used the word “lost” in two different ways is really cool.
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Thank you. 🙂
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The sound of water can shut out the rest of the world, even from above. To be totally enclosed in an liquid environment can only intensify that feeling. (K)
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It does, like being enveloped in a second, massive skin.
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Again you create in me a desire to “go under” … doing that vicariously just reading this! Thank you.
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Thank you for coming along. 🙂
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I really like how you’ve described such a different experience of silence.
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Thank you. It’s almost other worldly.
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I sense that from snorkling, but I know it’s different, so yes, and you give the sense of that so well.
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Thank you. 🙂
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I see parallels between drifting along for us with the virus. Funny that the “invasive species” of then and now gives us an opportunity to see, even as it devastates our ecosystems.
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That’s a good point on invasive species. This one certainly has a broad effect.
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I’ve never been underwater diving, although a great uncle dived for the Royal Navy with an aqualung back in the day. How amazing that you’ve completed so many dives! Your poem took me underwater with you, gave me an idea of how beautiful it is, but also how dangerous it can be. I love ‘’the brightness of day succumbs / to filtered light’ and ‘In a silence broken /only by that rhythmic breathing, thoughts rise / from their compartments.’
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Thank you, Kim. This one surprised me. For all the diving I had done, I hadn’t thought about it for a while.
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Wonderful to try and imagine diving, with water providing your solitude. Beautiful!
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Thank you, Sara.
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