Actress Sue Lyon & actor Richard Burton floating on their backs during filming
of motion picture “The Night of the Iguana.” Photo: Gjon Mili, LIFE.

In this poem George Bilgere describes a sensation I find very comforting: the feeling of being insulated — separated — from time, which one experiences when suspended in water, or when in the fuselage of an aeroplane surrounded by miles of sky .

I am doing laps at night, alone
In the indoor pool. Outside
It is snowing, but I am warm
And weightless, suspended and out
Of time like a fly in amber.

She is thousands of miles
From here, and miles above me,
Ghosting the stratosphere,
Heading from New York to London.
Though it is late, even
At that height, I know her light
Is on, her window a square
Of gold as she reads mysteries
Above the Atlantic. I watch

The line of black tile on the pool’s
Floor, leading me down the lane.
If she looks down by moonlight,
Under a clear sky, she will see
Black water. She will see me
Swimming distantly, moving far
From shore, suspended with her
In flight through the wide gulf
As we swim toward land together.

The poem is called Night Flight and I found it via American poet Ted Kooser‘s blog, American life in poetry.