The Lightness of Being
2008
This is an underwater poem. As the sole underwater spectator, the ceremonies of synchronized swimming practices, where bodies were moving in seemingly impossible ways, became for me a tableau vivant rich in symbolism; a metaphor for liberation from earthly constraints and emancipation from physical and psychological barriers.
The swimmers’ discipline and experience underwater are an investigation of the laws of physics, they dominate this other world by understanding their relationship to this element and embracing its hostility, thereby overcoming it and giving way to the wonders of buoyancy and healing. This seeming contradiction is ever present in humanity's relationship to water and representative of the tension between life and death that defines our existence as human beings.
