Lie back daughter, let your head be tipped back in the cup of my hand.

~ Live & Learn

Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls…
You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea…
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

~ Philip Booth, from “First Lesson” in  Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950-1999

Notes: Photo by mary-annm. Poem via 3 Quarks Daily

29 thoughts on “Lie back daughter, let your head be tipped back in the cup of my hand.”

  2. Reading this in a comatose stage, spread across a garden armchair, sighing in the still prevailing heat (28°C at 10.07pm) and praying for a swimming pool or else for a gallon of iced water to drink….. sorry. Brain has shutdown.

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      1. It is too hot to laugh…. How dare you 😎 we’re just back from a short (3h) visit of a friend’s inauguration of their water feature in their garden ….. I ask you! What are we? Circus ponies! ? 🎠🏇🎪🐎 And this with over ☀️🌡🌝 30°C IN their garden!🍹 🤔😂

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  3. This is so beautiful. Reminds me of my husband’s way with the kids. My dad literally through me in the water.
    And the photo, perfection….

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      1. I remember it like it was yesterday. I wasn’t frightened and I knew I won’t drown. I actually kept coming back for more.
        That being said, I am not a swimmer. And my way with my kids is different.

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  5. Wish I’d had that kind of help in learning to swim as a child. We didn’t have a pool in town in the early years, and my parents weren’t swimmers (even if they’d had the leisure time). I remember someone trying to teach me to float with my face in the water and saying you just had to believe that you were going to float, and you would. For the first 16 years of my life I swam like a rock.

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      1. I can swim but I’m no Olympian. I do remember the trust issue though. Since my parents couldn’t teach me, and it was the days before swimming lessons were so easily available, it took me until I was about 16 to teach myself bit by bit and learn that I would be okay. My high school bestie nearly drowned me one time though when we were swimming to the raft (a big deal to get there from the beach) and she told me a joke. I nearly died laughing. Did a post about it a couple of years ago.

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  6. Love this. Conjures up an image to when your brother gave Rachel and Eric swimming lessons in our pool in Florida – “make yourself a starfish – head in my hands, relax, breath easy, and open yourself as wide as possible.” And they floated!

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  7. I bet this takes you back to when Rachel and Eric were little and how they loved living in Miami…running on the beach, frolicking in the ocean…freedom under the spring and summer sun…and I bet today they are drawn to the coastal and island life…

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      1. Seems I was writing when Susan was posting…didn’t see her post until now…glad your children have a great memory made with their uncle.

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  12. Such a wonderful sentiment. Brought me back to Mr. Pillo, our kind neighbor and best friend to Dad, teaching me to float in Long Island Sound. From there I learned to swim and be perfectly comfortable in salt water. Thanks for stirring that remembrance David.

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