<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rhine Swim<\/strong><\/p>\n When you slip into the river and float downstream, With your ears underwater, the world goes silent, Whoever you’re with is whoever you’re with, to head back to with a stroke across the stream <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rhine Swim When you slip into the river and float downstream, first swim a little, then tread water to keep your head in the air, then tip it back and kick your legs up to the surface. With your ears underwater, the world goes silent, and if you close your eyes, all you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[138,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18273"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18480,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18273\/revisions\/18480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nfirst swim a little, then tread water
\nto keep your head in the air, then tip it back
\nand kick your legs up to the surface.<\/p>\n
\nand if you close your eyes, all you are is floating.
\nOpen them to see the sky in whatever colors,
\nand don’t ask them to stand for anything.<\/p>\n
\nwhile so many others are before and after
\nthose who are part of you. Everybody sees each other
\nin the current and on the shore that you begin<\/p>\n
\nuntil first one foot and then the other finds
\na rock and then sand and gravel to stand on
\nas your body emerges from the water like a body.<\/p>\n
\nAndrew Shields<\/strong> is an American poet who lives in Basel, Switzerland, where he teaches at the University of Basel English Department. His collection Thomas Hardy Listens To Louis Armstrong<\/em> was published by Eyewear in 2015, and he has also released two recordings with his band Human Shields, the album Somebody’s Hometown<\/em> and the EP D\u00e9fense de jouer<\/em>. You can find him online on Facebook<\/a> and Bandcamp<\/a>.<\/p>\n