The swedish word for water

We would spend summer in Sweden every year

Wooden houses and a blazing blonde sun

And the lake, where my earliest memories are buried in the sand

Safely locked away in countless crumbled castles

The holiday would only officially begin the minute my head disappeared under the water

And bobbed triumphantly back up, drenched from head to toe

It was as if the water would tell me in a big sploshy voice

That my favourite cousins were nearby

That days and days of this lay ahead

That I should enjoy all this while I can

Before waving me off to spicy food in small tubs

As those days turned into years

It made me smile to imagine that the water remembered me after all these years

That my familiar shape triggered its wet memory

And it would rush to swirl itself around my hair, face, arms, legs

But then one day they were there

Covering me from head to toe

Bringing with them a silent judgement

All the words I had learned by the lake

The Swedish for water, swim, jump, run

Were solemnly joined by the word for "modestly"

Jarring in my dictionary of fun words :

"Vatten, baden, hoppa, springa....ansprakslost"

A new word created a new world and things changed

I began to wonder what was wanted of me

Would the water still remember me?

As the material covered every inch, would it mistake me for a piece of man-made fibre

That had been tossed carelessly overboard?

Would it now rush to slip away from my synthetic skin?

If God and nature were the same thing

Why was I being asked to choose between them?

The choice was easy

I could never, ever let the water forget me.