Cirvant

I can’t Breathe, I am trying…I try to…
I gasp for air, but I rise with my lungs full of water
I feel it’s too much for me
And my legs are kicking and my arms are waving

Trying to stay afloat

And then I swim and when I feel like I have gained my rhythm, my flow
This new sea brings a tidal wave, that again takes me under

And so I feel I am drowning yet again
I am in a Academic Tsunami!
I scream I shout…no one hears me
All that I thought was solid foundation beneath me is shaken
If you want to study eschatology then study me…
Cause I feel that I am at the end of me, yet what will arise I don’t know!

But there will be a difference
Because the storm, the sea has changed me
Not only has the salt changed me without
But what I have consumed has brought a revolution within me

When I get my breath again I will swim
Though I see no shore I will swim
In the distance I see more waves even greater than before
I still swim, knowing that ahead of me lies truth

I am trying

I cannot drown

I know there is a shore!

And when I get there, there will be people who are waiting to meet me
I must share with them my story
I must teach them of the hope in why I swam
I have to keep swimming and persevering
Because I must one day teach them to swim…

With every stroke of my arm I get stronger
With every kick of my leg I get closer
My head under and up for a breath
Though waves come I will fight through
I must swim….

I swim for those children who are in distant lands and far away

Those who have no food, skin clinging to their bones

They are too weak to cry and too feeble to walk

They are fragile…so I must swim

I swim with them in mind

They keep my arms moving and are the motivation behind my feet kicking

So I swim cause some are alone and without someone to love them

No source of strength

No one to nurture them

And as I swim I pray…

Oh God hear my prayer!

From the ends of the earth they cry unto you, My heart is overwhelmed

So I come to the Rock who is higher than I

And my tears are not for myself but for those I swim to

And though I cannot be with them now I hope that through prayer my invisible hands may be able to touch them…

Sill I swim

I swim for the little girls in Africa who are raped

Because an AIDS infected man believes she holds his cure

And their innocence has been robed

Their oppression far to great to look on, so many have turned their heads

These babies raped and molested everyday and left to die…

Deep Breathe and I swim

For the little girl in the Philippines

Whose only hope at a meal is to rummage through a dump site

Digging through trash no shoes to cover her feet

Where are her parents? Some might ask, right beside her in the hunt.

They have no food stamps or welfare

Their only hope for survival is in the trash

And they will not cry for themselves

Because this is the fate they have grown to accept

Head up and under I swim

I swim for the little kid in front of the Catholic Church in Sao Paulo

One leg withered and he is cold

His parents both dead, he and his older brother left to live with his grandmother in a shack

He prays, if you are real heal me!

He pours his heart to God and I feel what he feels

And the tears that he does not cry because he has become numb to his pain and his poverty has become the fact of his life, those tears he will not cry have become mine

I swim for the children we call invisible…

The ones who are in Africa who are forced to carry a gun

Who are forced to kill their families…

I swim for them…I fight for them…I pray for them…I write for them

I speak so they will have a voice…I sing so someone will hear there song

They can be invisible no longer…I See them…you must open your closed eyes and see them too

They are not that distant…and you can help…and so I swim

Right arm, left arm feet kicking

Heart racing I must swim

This swim has become my reason to live so I must swim because they depend on it!