Sherry Clark - Godspeed, Dear Heart

Sherry Clark -- My Friend for Over Thirty Years

Sherry Clark who, at 51, passed from us on Sunday from the insidious effects of the return of her breast cancer -- she had been in remission for, I believe, over seven years -- was the Aquatic Supervisor for the City and County of Denver. Sherry's life was swimming. I, too, have been a lifelong swimmer and, like Sherry, worked for the City and County of Denver's Parks and Recreation Division (Aquatics). Sherry spent her entire city career with Aquatics. I spent about ten summers way back in the old days ('68 to '80, with a break of two years -- '72 to '74 when I served in the US Army), first as a pool attendant (the kids who take your clothes and check them and clean the bathrooms and pool deck, etc.); then as a lifeguard and then as a pool manager. I believe I first met Sherry in about 1970.

Sherry was life. That's the best description of her I can provide. She was always up. Her demeanor, her smile, her laughter, her enthusiasm, her love of the water was infectious.

I will miss her immensely, as will so many, many others whose lives she touched with her special magic.

All I can offer to her memory is a poem I wrote years ago which, I believe, she would have understood as completely as I understand it.

The Natural Things

I am a swimmer
as some men pursue swift
silent
deer
or lure
elegant, high-mountain trout
to feathered hooks.

It is all in the passion
to cohabit
with the natural things;
to be more vital
than reason.

There is
the inevitable death
with the hunting.
There are some
who will throw those rainbowed beauties
back
from where they came,
muttering softly to the fish
that next time
they will know better
than to jump
at
too
fat
flies.

And I,
I have this passion
to move with the water
as a tall Pine
sways in a full wind or a
gray wolf wails and barks
just to preserve the sociability
of the natural pack.

The man to the water.
The water to the sea.
The sea to the clouds.
The clouds to the heavens.

The natural things
to the natural things.


Godspeed, Dear Heart.