Poetry (1): Swimming for Life

After thinking about it, I have decided to share some of my yet-to-be-published poems with you, starting with this one written in February 2005 during a bus ride to Tottenham in London. Commuting by train or bus provides some refreshing reflections on life. Such reflections provide the fertile grounds and inspirations for serious soul-searching exercises which sometimes result in poetic outpourings like the one below. And by the way, my collection of poems under the umbrella of "The Ravings of a Wounded Spirit" is still in the works. Well, happy reading:

Swimming for Life
Life is like the waters,
Oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and streams;
We, the creatures, are
Just the swimmers.

We can fly like the birds;
Walk like man and other mammals;
Crawl like the snake
Or hop like the kangaro.

We, the creatures, are
Just swimmers
Struggling to survive
In these waters called life;

We are struggling
In our own various ways
To find ourselves
On the other side of the waters

Sometimes in the middle of the waters
We seem to be tired of swimming
Our hands and legs
Become too heavy and painful
To be dragged along.

Sometimes we look up
And feel that the journey
Is still too far and nigh impossible
To complete.

Sometimes the pain and strain of swimming
Take a heavy toll on our resolve for survival
We become despondent
And want to give up the struggle

Then comes a glimmer of hope
The hope of the despairing swimmer
Then comes a straw
We clutch at it
With all the remaining strength we can muster
We clutch at it
With desperation

With some luck
Sometimes with or without a comensurate effort
We navigate successfully
To the other side of the waters

Sometimes we become
Too strong for the straw
Especially when the straw
Is not deep-rooted
The torrent of life
The torrent of the waters
Sweep us down the stream
To continue the struggle elsewhere
If we survive the turbulence
Of the waters.
Dili Ojukwu (17/02/05)