Remembering Stevie Smith.

When I was on the point of drowning
in a tide-rip, alone, in the Atlantic, in November,
with nothing around me but a grey-green ocean
and an empty strand,
I actually did, momentarily, remember
the splendid Stevie Smith.

And then I touched a sandbar with a foot,
turned round and crawled back hand over hand
against the current and the tide,
coming up for air as my lungs required.
For half an hour I lay panting
in perfect solitude upon the sand.

I would have drowned, not waving...
what would have been the point ?
And, anyway, what human life is worth saving ?