During one hot day at work last week, I heard children's voices and laughter. So I wrote this:
"The Swimmers"
by Jeffrey James Ircink
The sun beats down hard - unrelenting.
I react with a sigh of despair.
I wipe the sweat from my brow - take a cool drink,
and rue this day of days, wondering when it will
come to an end.
Who shares my plight? Who pities my condition?
Certainly not those angelic voices I hear breaking
through the dense heat of the day.
No, not the children - whose laughter suggests
their hearts beat in rhythm to a solitary
thought and motion, as they jump and frolic
and shout and swim.
Droplets bead down their faces -
faces the heat quickly dries -
only to once again plunge into their
liquid refreshment again and again...and again.
I recall with fondness the days when I did the same -
felt the same.
I know how those children feel;
I know what they are thinking.
Do they know what I am thinking?
Do they care what I was once them?
Oh-h-h God...how I hate the swimmers.
© Copyright 2016 Jeffrey James Ircink
