The American Scholar

“For to swim is also to take hold
On water’s meaning, to move in its embrace
And to be, between grasp and grasping, free.”

—Charles Tomlinson, as quoted by Willard Spiegelman in “Buoyancy: In literature, as in life, the art of swimming isn’t hard to master”

(Photo by IOC/John Huet, courtesy London 2012)