Fifty Years Without a Name
That swimming pool in the back yard
is fifty years old and to this day has no name.
clearly it is not Hiawatha’s Shining Water
nor is it Bryon’s Darkling Pool .
But for services beyond any expectation
it deserves a name, perhaps Learning Pool in honor of
all the kids who learned to swim there
(although my kids numbers seem very high.)
Perhaps Freedom Pool in honor of those Southern refugees
signed out of public pools
who were welcomed here.
Maybe the roaring evenings after graduation
with shouts and jumps off the roof
suggests Celebration Pond.
Or the many life long friendships
started in the wading pool
nominates the name Wet Bar.
Shouts of Joy leave the pool panting
With energetic ripples which give way
To peaceful painted ship stillness
Now the happy screams of splashing delight
are gone and the pool is my hydrotherapy
so it could be given the title of Healing Pool.
The pool had a life all its own -
there were the splashing joyous years-
now are the days where the laps on the side are gentle.
For an old man the water in the pool
reflects the changes from active to
quietly smoothing and still.
Maybe we should name it the Metaphor Pool
for its show of the shifting
tides of human existence.
But 50 is not really that old for a swimming pool
so when I am not watching too closely
she and her playmate, the sun, play games.
A small leaf on the surface casts a shadow
of a monster on the bottom of the pool
ready to shark scare a little one.
From the first sun to hit the pool
they play at snowflake and diamond
reflections on the pool bottom.
The many shades of gold move across the pool bottom
constantly changing in Kaleidoscope fashion
as a reminder of a depth of life even for a pool.
So a name is needed to cover all
and more faces not unmasked.
I nominate: THIS OLD POOL.
But wait maybe the need for a name changes
with each evolving function
of which there have been so many.
Perhaps it best if we have an ever changing name
to fit the current pool function
and if we do it that way.
We now could call it hydrotherapy
and dream maker for a pool by
another name is still just what you need it to be.
Doug Minnis
8/31/2015