Surrender

A skinny little girl,
water worthy after lots of lessons,
I found
that I could swim down
to the bottom of the four foot
and lay on the floor of the pool--
not for long (of course)
and never comfortably,
as lungs squeezed and nerves agitated
for the inevitable order
to stroke through the blur and break
back into the brilliant cacophony
of the upper world.

Lying on the futon, now
older, more substantial, more able to float,
I recall the bottom of the pool
and find
I am there again--
passive, all the way down.
Far, far from the blazing altar,
iron will, devotee's vow,
down here, I remember
that surrender is a battle term
and people do it
when they can't do anything else.
Down here, I surrender--
though my all is very little:
is, principally,
the right to declare anything hopeless.
Down here I surrender--
again and again for as long as it takes--
the right to give up.