The Mermaid, Her Ram, and the Otter: A Saga Ongoing

Chapter One

The Mermaid, Her Ram, and the Otter

Before I set out to tell this Tale,
I must say I really hadn’t ought to,
A Tale so full of Woe you’ll wail
Really should remain untold, or…uttered only in Otter.

But Truth must out, this the Ages prove,
And always Love True will always do
What only Love can: the Universe yes, will move…
The Stars, explode! the Sun…the Moon, yes…and you will too.

Ah yes, yet…this Tale is full of Secrets:
should nots, no, don’t go theres…
Secrets, such as what rhymes with silver, purple and orange, too?

Secrets…sweet, rare, with none or few could you or I compare,
Secrets. You are hanging on each, every word now, aren’t you?

So. I begin at the end as the Mermaid’s tear
Fell, so clearly loud to her pillow it did thud,
A Stone! She thought as she awoke…

yes, stones falling cold, old as fear…
Alone, she felt…and let them fall,
they became eventually, salt on mud.

Her thoughts roamed back to the days the Sun so brightly glowing
Did charge, Fire across Azure! She and her Ram did swiftly run,
Her long locks drying, his fleet-footed feet flying,
their Love wildly growing,
Their hearts…two Drums, stretched, sounding,
together: they were One.

To the Heights of his mountain peaks her Ram did climb,
Ever higher past oak, green holly, past crimson rose, thorny briar,
To where they could look out upon shining
flashing diamond crests: her Sea, so fine.

Gaze they did upon those brilliant Depths,
and understood they could go no Higher.

Alas. We arrive at the Part where you and I sigh,
then weep, then shake!
A fist towards Heaven! A foot…we lift and, stomp on Hell!
For it is not to be, nay…
that they could forever together stay to wake
to their own Day. “Ah well,” she said to herself
as back towards Ultramarine she fell,
“What was that line that starts...
’tis better to have loved and have lost?

What idiot Poet could ever have stooped and wallowed…
O the toll such an Act exacts of the Heart, the Cost!”
She fell through the currents, through the Air, to the Sea…
and a sea of salt she swallowed.

Swimming with eyes brimming this then became her routine,
‘til one night, wearied from working her way upstream,
she did flop to moon upon a river rock,
The Orb’s gleam too bright she found, too mean,
so turned her head and surveyed the scene.

There, stood the Otter, curious, carnation in hand, in the other?
A sock, her lost sock.
“O my Soul, my sock!” now not lost but found…and her Ram, still,
so far afar, yet watching from his height,
“O Love! So Strong!” So True. So Pure…so long forgotten,
not once, but twice? born anew!

Her heart already severely blue, now into two ripped,
apart, now torn, asunder,
Now forever twain. This, their situation you can see is
frightfully more than slightly tight…
What will they do, the Mermaid, her Ram, and the Otter?

As do you, and I, they also Wonder.
So this Tale of Woe, of reaping not that which one
Does so sincerely try to sow,
Here ends surely, although their Secrets,
I know…you want to know.

Their fates will I relate:
It is now as will always be and always was of late:

The Mermaid grows slowly old, in her silent cold Black Deep,
does yet weep, and navigate,
Her Ram in his Cerulean Heights does toil, does yet sweat,
does further roam and climb,
But joyously the Otter does yet leap and splash and play…
in the sparkling sapphire Waters of the River Thyme.

Chapter Two

The Ram, the Otter…their Mermaid.

Now, you tactfully ask, press me, as facts you lack…
What exactly did transpire that night
under a moon purely white, meanly bright?

Keen, in your eye a gleam, just why do you seem
so in need of further insight?
Their fate…all is unfolding, yes. Smolder as nothing Older
will the Fire of Desire to Know, kindle, then roar!

now fueling your mind;
All we need truly, is Secret, all we can know that is,
without rudely intruding,
is if to their own Nature they were Kind.

And how to arrive at the veracity of that?

It is as it is with all things:
Truth lies not within my realm to convey to your mind:
relate I will of all they did seek but not of what they did find…

Ah, yes… I know Meaning haunts,
its Secret us all teases and taunts.

“What now?” the Otter breath baited, inquired,
then quietly quite assuredly awaited response.

The Mermaid on her rock lolled sadly, yearning,
badly needing diverting, and mused…
what adventure do I fancy… quiet? chancy?

“If it’s chilly…how ‘bout goin’ climbin’…
someplace quite high, someplace hilly?”
…where a glimpse of her Ram she did sigh,
she just might catch …oh how silly.

“If it’s sunny, let’s…go to the beach,
walk l o n g sands the color of honey…”
… the one, that with her Ram she did gaze down upon,
her Sea does yet lap, its crests brilliantly gleaming...
oh now her eyes were teeming,
nose runny...no, this is not at all funny

“If it’s mild, let’s…flat out run through woods so wild…”
…oh to be soaring with her Ram through Azure Skies so high,
she moaned, then groaned… oh stop being a baby child…

“If it’s cold, oh…” she hesitated.
“Me, I will want you to closely hold.”
...that’s better, yes. There now, forget she must,

now, before she grew cold, old,
and with her heart could no longer be any where near to bold…

“If it’s hot, a clear cool river surely we’ll find the sweetest spot.”
…swimming with an Otter, this Otter… she eyed him freshly.

In his eye of Hope she caught a glimmer …
why, there just hardly could not be a better lot.

“But…as it’s likely to yet be storming, I need ask that you please, Otter… I plead that you heed this warning:
In short? Your arms I trust to be Safe Port.”

...if my heart again can ever even begin to try, oh… to love
this Otter, I must believe, why yes, he is just the very sort.

“O Otter”…she began, but stopped and thought:
should you know? If down not just any path we are to go,
to start… yes. “My heart,” she continued, “which I did again
try to let sing, and soar, I did with just of late part.

I had turned sail, intent to return, as I did realize calm seas,
bright skies might turn a most unseemly green...
when just then the Wind…oh how the Wind did arise.

O grueling fierce, furious South of East!
I did not reach shore just in time, too long at Sea I did tarry.
I was not at all near enough to wary…I failed to believe
Love capable of a deed indeed so very, truly cruel…

As, In Love, once again completely I had trusted.
Snared, caught unawares, startled, betrayed…my heart
That gross gale Force did impale, tear, torque and trample.

I am afraid healing time simply
has not been anywhere near too ample.”

So very calmly,
as waters deep, still, sweet and balmy,
her hand he did touch.

These words without sputter the Otter did utter:
“Much, so very much, my merry Maid of Mer,
‘pends ‘pon the Weather.

now …what of your Song…
shall we, must we wait, and why, and if we do so, for how long?”
so, now, my inquiring Friend…in the end this is all I know:
we are all counting, marking seconds slow…
my God! I just can't wait ‘til once again we are together.

Chapter Three

The Whereabouts of the Otter’s Cave

(secret)

Chapter Four

The Mermaid’s Song

(secret)

Chapter Five

The Ram’s Fate of Late

(secret)

Theodora Anne Merry

Winter Solstice

12.21.05


NATURE MAKES MUSIC OF US NYE
- adaptation of "The Wind and the Rain" by Jimmy Warner

The winds blow across our bones like a flute
Where pain is the blowin of an ancient truth
Of knowledge passed on but not well known.

There’s a cryin to make for truth made plain
For dearly beloveds and the gatherd in pain,
Tis a wind that gathers the few of the slain.

The truth will out if the bone is carved, if her
Thigh is filled with the vents for a wittnessin
All of the sayin and cryin made fit for them.

Spaces are drilled for the finger to touch but
The notes are unique to the clan of the ear:
They yearn to learn of past worlds and such.

What kindred music is it sayin to us nye
Bout the sister who pushed her other one in?

Tis a bone of truth on the wind and the rain.

Oh winds play across our bones like a flute
And where lies truth of an ancient thought
Of what passed on but was not understood?

And, what IS our woodwind kin keep sayin
For the sister who pushed her other one in?
Tis a bone of truth, this weeping of the rain.

Tis a boon of truth on the wind AND the rain.


IN SPRING WHEN THE MUSE IS REAL
BY Jimmy Warner

It’s a flash-white, hot-DOG idea like
The very ego of spring taking over
And causing all of your dreams to

Leave their hiding places and play
Those first notes that grow out of
Musical curiosity, that key of “C”

Mentality still a hay-sweet breeze
That plays the notes of a secret soul,
Only now, she’s real and more than
A musing of tenderly strong wishes
On the daydream chain of existence
Where toys on the lawn used to be.

In spring when the muse is so
Powerful inside your heart and
The sounds you make together
Come from another world that
Didn’t exist before you thought
Of each other, a children’s music
Playfully kind, numinous and
Round as songs, deep sounding
And sensuous as poets’ longings.

When the muse is real and her
Rare fever trips in again on bare
Yellow feet, the dream is renewed.