The oddly foreboding lighthouse at Cape May Point

Another life-affirming sonnet from the tireless ball-point pen of Arnold Schnabel. First published in the Olney Times of July 20, 1963, and brought to you thanks to the wonderful people of the Arnold Schnabel Society.

“Swimming”

Off to my right a girl’s dollhouse convent
And a little boy’s toy lighthouse model;
The yawning sun begins its grand descent
And the gulls and jackdaws cheer and yodel
As the bay catches fire one last time;
My arms and legs in animal motion,
My breath the meter, my muscles the rhyme,
I feel I could swim across this ocean;
I take one great lungful of breath and dive
Down deep to where all is green and quiet
Down through a world where the dead are alive,
And, strange to say, so also am I, yet
Up I burst to the light, and head towards
The shore, and home, to write these words.

(For links to many other stunning Arnold Schnabel poems and to his award-winning memoir Railroad Train to Heaven, please go to the sidebar.)