I'm going to make sure I leave some time for the new pieces.
This one, too, is a water.
Definitely a water one.
This to me-- this is very biographical,
which is something-- which is a question that
comes up from students.
How much of you is in the poem.
And how much is not.
And that you shouldn't just assume that the writer--
it is the writer's life.
This one is my life.
It is my water life.
It is a chronology of my water experience.
And Liz and Alberta know that, where we grew up,
it's pretty dry.
And Liz's first essay in our seminars, of course,
she had to make reference to the irrigation ditches.
And that was the swimming hole, I guess, for all of us
back then.
All my brothers and sisters really
like to swim in the ditch and at the pump--
where the pump is, the water can be pretty deep.
And I, for some reason, was always afraid of water--
that kind of water.
And so I was not so adventurous.
But as an adult, when our daughter was fairly young,
both her and her dad were swimmers.
They swam in some of the great pools that Tucson has.
And my daughter was an age group swimmer into high school.
And Tony also was an adult level swimmer.
And so I sat on the sidelines and cheered them on.
But in my early 30s, I was diagnosed
with rheumatoid arthritis.
And my doctor said to me, swimming is very good
because it doesn't put pressure on your joints and so forth.
And I just knew if I told that to my family
they would force me to learn how to swim.
So I didn't tell them.
Instead, what I did was I enrolled in a swimming class
here on campus.
Those of you who have been here long enough to know that there
used to be a swimming pool over there
where it used to be the women's PE building-- the Ina Gittings
building.
It's no longer there.
In fact, most of those swimming pools that were here then
are no longer.
There used to be a swimming pool up on the Student Union also,
right?
N. Scott Momaday used to do his laps there.
I used to watch him do his laps.
But anyway, I learned to swim there.
And went to learn to swim.
It snowballed.
Not because I wanted to, but because my daughter
and my husband wanted things to happen--
water things.
And so this is a chronology of my water events.
And it's called "Traces."
Sitting in the desert on a summer morning,
I make minor observations.
Resting my ankle on the opposite knee, I noticed the skin there.
Fine lines running like minor tributaries,
like pattern cuts in a jigsaw puzzle.
The white, dry lines are clear against Brown skin.
Flakes begin to peel away making space for new.
With each movement, more flakes fall.
A cycle that is a part of me and all that claims skin.
I think back and find myself in a swimming pool
where I learned to swim at 35.
I moved in the water with reluctant grace.
On a backstroke, I see the space shuttle riding back to Florida.
Flakes of my skin in the water cleansed by chlorine.
Pieces of skin now a part of rubble and new cement.
I stand up and with each step of the skin--
with each step, pieces of skin fluttered downward,
caught momentarily on the inside of my pant leg.
I continue to walk.
Flakes fall onto the cuff of my sock resting
on what must seem like an eternity for such a migration.
It falls and comes to a longer rest on the top of my shoe.
It rides.
It rides the muddy current of the Colorado River.
Finding places where the water is clear, green.
Part of me finds its way to sediment
at the bottom of that river.
I will be part of the disturbance
when rocks move again reshaping a canyon.
It rides the water and mud to the empty point of the ocean.
To the entry point at the ocean.
I move gracefully in weightlessness
among ocean life.
My skin floats to the bottom of the sea floor.
I touch just enough seashells.
I continue walking in a dry wash.
I step on a hill of sand.
The piece of skin riding on my shoe falls.
At dusk, a coyote wanders through the wash.
He picks up my scent.
It leads nowhere.
But once I learned to swim, that's what we ended up doing.
We rode the Rapids of the Colorado
and we learned to scuba dive.
And so I've been below the ocean several times.