Mimory Me
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A solitary selkie sings

to the wild waves, her willful tune;

While her precious pups play

in a glimmering mist 'neath a midnight moon.

Her throat twines her heart’s heavy tones,

like a witch’s wand weaves Erda’s moans.

But folding seas her song-spells swallow,

then sound and spray the steep cliff-stones.

Winter waves wash the craggy shore,

where she, her seal-skin once had strewn.

'Twas her heart, with that hide,

a landsman stole on that sunny summer noon.

Briefly, she and he did dance and dream

that they were thanes upon their thrones;

With fleeting fancies of a family formed

in balance between both homes.

Her sea-pup sat 'stride his shoulders,

as he gave her his heart to hold.

She in turn, gave word she’d wait while he

paid the price of a promise old;

A pledge so far from her sea-folk ways,

that it strained her like sinking stones.

With her heart made heavy, fearful she fled,

lest bare earth should bleach her bones.

He sought her, such a struggled while,

as she wandered within her waves.

Until he saw how salt tears and seas,

engulfed him like glittering graves.

He turned, and learned to tread his earthly trek,

where he made himself a home;

But fickle Fate sent him sorrows and showed

how his soul still craves sea-foam.

Soft—hear now, her heart’s own hum:

sea-spells sounding from a sheer stone scarp.

The land laughing back her lofted charms,

as if hurled from a haunted harp.

And lo, listening by star light,

on a strand where soft earth and sea do meet:

Lingers once more, our lonely landsman,

where the salt waters wash his feet.

He follows faint flickers of

songs that still echo within his soul.

Wishing some witchery would weave

with seaweed and stone to shape a shoal:

Some wyrded hollow where he would weather

the wild dangers of the deep;

And she, with him, in that stead so shaped,

her sea-selk skin could keep.






Page last modified on January 08, 2023, at 03:00 PM