Seal Woman’s Lament
Lulled by a sweet thrum
of waves on shelled strand,
tide running the shimmery reef,
moon full and cornsilk bright,
a shore wanderer on midsummer eve
unearths cockles and lugworms,
plentiful in the sandy bay.
Near waterline where streamlet
meets surf and the sheen sand
connects boulders on the point,
he detects a cry, a haunting keen
emerging from the sea
a groan like tortured slip hinges:
She Who Weeps.
He finds her, his selkie wife,
spared to the land,
cradled in rockweed
eyes desolate and blurred brown
crooning like a daft thrush
pining for her stolen skin:
Away to me, away to me.
He knows her despair
as he knows the sea,
her breath and blood still part of it,
skimming the swells like wind
spilling into her song, his love for her
a groping turmoil,
powerless to free her.
[Reprinted from HeartLodge Journal. 2 nd place poem, Montgomery Branch, National League of American Pen Women Contest, 2005. 3 rd place poem, Poet’s Choice, Missouri State Poetry Contest, Winter 2005. Highly Commended poem, Tom Howard Poetry Contest, 2005.]