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A Watery Antidote for a World Gone Mad, by Cecilia Farran

I am doing laps in the pool 
when a blue inflated ball 
hurtles over the edge at me 
tossed from the family 
frolicking in the play pool beyond. 

I swim past it noticing that this bobbling sphere
holds the outlines and bright colors 
of the continents and countries of the world. 
It is a floating globe. 
A bit lacking full inflation 
and dented here and there along its seam, 
but I have come to expect that.

It has been forgotten in their exuberant play
No one comes to claim it 
and as I swim 
I watch it shutter and rock on the waters 

And as I swim I smile.

The world has been delivered to my lap.
Weighted to stay upright
yet unstable, it tips and spins
cast adrift and unclaimed 
it jolts and shutters
in unpredictable tremors and confusion.

I swim and feel called to do my part.
To swim more gently. 
Breathe more slowly 
that I might in some small way
unruffle its wobbly glide.

A few words from W. B. Yeats come to mind:
“make our lives so like still water …”

Cecilia Farran, Lone Rock