Mermaid

My step-daughter turns 18 today. A very big deal here in the Philippines. They call it her "debut." I'm not sure if I've mentioned her before on this blog. If not, let this be her official debut.

THE FISHERMAN WRITES A LETTER TO THE MERMAID

This water is so clear
my boat appears to float on air
and casts its shadow on sand
green as a mermaid’s hand

the water is so still
I could carve words upon it with a quill
back-to-front sentences in bloodred ink
and watch them sink

while she, sky-gazing there below
could read, uncoiling slow
like trails of apple-peel
downward beneath my keel:

dear distant friend
even a ray of light must bend
to glide from me to you
so how may words pierce through?

yet think it not too hard
our lives are laid apart
this gulf is hardly greater than
that between man and man

(less, truly, for his tear
sinks, and will touch her there
sharp as a barb among the submarine waves
tears are the element in which she lives)

dear distant friend
if you should chance to find 
the heart I lost one green mid-ocean day
please put it by

please keep it for me shelled in pearl
some seaborne while
and do not doubt, your friend
will come to claim it in the end

Joan Aiken