The Drowning - Andrew Barham

Part I

It wasn't until they saw him lying
On the bottom of the pool that they knew
My brother was in the process of drowning –
He was so slight and frail, face freckled through,
As slender as the Willow's branch that weeps;
I was nine the day my brother was found
Face down on the pool's floor as though asleep.
When children drown, they barely make a sound –
No frantic struggling a la Hollywood;
Instead, they become silent, nose up high,
Head back, barely moving, on tiptoe stood –
Small children letting go with a sigh …

A woman, unknowing, watched him drowning,
Though he cried out for help in his distress,
Mistaking his frantic cries for clowning:
One more silly six-year-old's childishness.
I remember seeing him by the pool-side
After they fished him out, on the deck lying
Deadly pale and drawn, his face fish-belly white.
At the time, I was too numbed for crying
As frantic lifeguards fought to restore life
To that small shape on the deck lying still:
In those desperate moments beyond strife,
We reckon neither with good nor with ill.

To the rescue, the police roared in
Astonishing my parents with their speed!
Resuscitating life to his lifeless limbs;
Once again, my brother lived and breathed.
To the hospital, he was moved straight away
Where they kept him for an hour or so,
Releasing him home when he seemed okay:
"Do not let him fall asleep!" We were told;
And so, we spent the remaining daytime
Watching over my exhausted brother
Who kept stealing away and lying down,
Alarming my father and my mother
Until my father took him by the hand
And led him outside for a walk to go
Though my weary brother could barely stand –
On that sultry sun-burned Saturday so long ago …

Part II

The beach had been closed all morning
Because of a drowning some time past;
And only a few days ago, almost without warning
A man floating on a mattress gasped;
Called for help and slipped below the water –
He was a tall man in his youthful prime,
His friend so slight she was mistook for his daughter –
It happened rapidly, though, for her, time
Passed slowly, as though stalled as she tried,
Vainly, to pull her friend to the surface
Less than 15 metres from the shore where he died,
And, to Vancouver's lasting disgrace
Not one bather on the crowded beach
Responded to her frantic cries for aid,
Though they were all well within reach:
Everyone enjoying the sun, on their patch of sand stayed.

Perhaps they failed to apprehend the situation,
For film and television, with their need
For heightening drama have given a false imitation,
Heedless in their haste to entertain as they mislead:
We now expect when someone drowns to see and hear
Frantic struggling with desperate cries –
The final panic before the approaching death we all fear,
The vain screaming and struggling as the victim tries
To stay afloat, keeping their head above the waves,
Crying for help, thrashing in desperation
Hoping to attract the notice of the rescuer who saves
Them from this untimely and deadly situation;

But, it is not at all as seen on the tv screen –
The person about to drown makes scarce a sound
Beyond that one call of distress before dark green
Water seals the victim's fate as he goes down,
His strength exhausted, his energy spent.
Initially, the victim's body assumes command
As it tries to conserve energy – all effort bent
Towards making a final, desperate stand
As the victim goes silent and grows still
In an effort to keep his head high enough
To maintain the ability to fill
His lungs with the airy, life-giving stuff.

As he loses energy and his strength fails,
He ceases his efforts to stay afloat.
At no time did he wail or desperately flail,
For, to do so would have filled his throat
With deadly water, so now, exhausted, he sinks
Momentarily, his strength diminished.
But before that deadly water he drinks –
For our victim is not yet finished –
He pushes himself to the surface once more,
Gasping in a panic to fill his lungs with air,
Again sinking down, about to drown, his energy store
All but gone as he pushes himself up that watery stair,
With each frantic breath, sinking a little deeper,
The water surrounding him pulling him down
And the energy requirements grow steeper
Until he fails, sucks down water, and drowns.

Time slowed for the young woman, she said,
To the interviewer on the radio;
Yet, in no time at all, her friend was dead
So rapidly does a drowning go
From that first moment when one knows
He's in trouble, to the very last;
For, outside our moment, Time never truly slows,
Those frantic seconds ever rushing past
As those portending events with unending horror filled
Unfold as inexorably as the rising storm which grows
Until our world with violent energy is filled
And all calm and tranquility about us goes.

Part III

On that frightful day my brother was found
Lying still on the bottom of the swimming pool;
On that day my brother nearly drowned,
Time unravelled like the unwinding spool
Of an old news reel from the cinema
We once went to for the Children's Matinee –
Space Opera serials ending each week in an enigma,
The hero about to die every Saturday.

After the police took my brother away
I walked, numb, too shocked for the idle talk of boys,
With the old friends we'd come to visit that day.
It was a burning hot day; the shimmering noise
Of cicadas whirring loudly in the trees
In response to the sultry heat as through the park we walked
While my companions attempted to comfort me,
For we knew not whether mournful Death, who'd stalked
My little brother by the crowded pool-side
Had taken His tiny prize from the land of the quick
And carried it to His lair in the place for those who've died,
Playing upon us all His cruelest trick.

I don't remember who brought my brother to our friend's home
From the hospital where the police took him
After they'd pulled him back from the brink of that watery tomb
Vigourously restoring life to his water-cooled limbs;
It was the policeman who told my father and mother
That it might be fatal for him to lie down and fall asleep;
Thus, we followed wherever went my exhausted brother,
For he was weary after his sojourn in the darker deeps,
Longing only to crawl away and lay down his sleepy head
In any cubby corner or concealéd nook –
As though he longed to return to the Land of the Dead
Depart this land of the quick he nearly foresook.

The more our efforts he vainly sought to evade,
The greater we redoubled our vigilance
Following him into every place he sought to fade
Into that endless sleep, for Life returns with reluctance,
Though it resists its exit with titanic ferocity –
Rarely do we go meekly into that endless night,
Life holding on with an imperious tenacity
No matter how grim and drear seems out plight.
At length, our father took my brother by the hand
And led him outside into the brilliant sunlight
Taking him for a long walk in order to withstand
That creeping somnolence he alone could no longer fight.

My brother tells me, the sun was so strong that afternoon
That both he and our father soon were burned
But at least our father kept him from that fatal swoon
And a second chance for my brother was earned
To remain in the quickness of the living world.
But dire Death had not done with my brother yet!
A day later, dark Death once more about him swirled,
For the grim destroyer of all hopes could not let
His tiny prize escape so easily his clutching –
Thus, when all seemed well, on the following Sunday
My brother's recovery was disturbed by violent retching:
Once more Montreal's police were called to take him away.

My brother's recovery from that fateful Saturday
Was long and slow, and many years would pass
When he, on the margins of pool or lake-shore, would stay
Afraid to break those watery sheets of glass;
But, all things, given time enough, will fade away
Even memories of such frightful import:
Eventually, there would come a day
When yet again my brother would to the water resort
As a soothing balm on a scorching summer Saturday

Andrew Barham