These Days.
These days ocean mermaids will not sing for me.
Once we both dreamt they sighed over rollers,
rose above waters and rode
heavy swell just to make lovers feel less alone
as ocean singing stirred hope.
When winds streamed thru\' seaweed, combed
back wave tops to streaks of white
hair foam they, we said, left wet salty homes
and from sunken beds brought
two nearer by sea music, Neptune-composed.
Plucked by long bleached sun-withered fingers
human heartstrings, as distance
receded through saline- soothed sweetness
caught tuneful lullaby peace.
Sea-lady ballads these days to me never appear.
Instead misty fog seeps tears into memories,
rubs its back across bleak clefts
in October\'s dirge and leaves empty laments
as it creeps tuneless along dunes.
Will there I ask come days again when after
lingering long at ebb-tide tracks
I hear maidens sing new strains of romance,
or will love stay forever a ballad
locked on faraway shores and lost in France.
Mermaid singing once heard has unfading appeal.