I swam the Huron of love, and am not ashamed, It was many saw me do it, scoffing, scoffing, They said it was foolish, winter and all, But I dove in, greaselike, and swam, And came up where Erie verges. I would say for the expenditure of love, And the atrophy of longing, there is no cure So swift, so sleek, so fine, so draining As a swim through the Huron in the wintertime.
From Nature & Love Poems, published by Eakins Press, 1969. Copyright © 1969 by Ruth Herschberger. Used by permission of the author.