‘In chilly solitude’

Illustration from Everard Digby's “The Art of Swimming (De Arte Natandi)” (1587).

“Into my empty head there come

a cotton beach, a dock wherefrom

I set out, oily and nude

through mist, in chilly solitude’’

— From “Morning Swim,’’ by Maxine Kumin (1925-2014), U.S. poet laureate in 1981-1982. She lived in Warner, N.H.

— Photo by Richard Palmer