The sea is an old woman
washed on the shore.
She sighs,
she slumbers,
her white face stares at the sky.
She wears the pearls of the moon.
Her braids curl about her head,
her last glory.
Even inside the continent,
a thousand towns away,
her voice comes soft as a note
dwindling on a string,
the pluck of a girl’s finger.
Another league into the mountains,
and it is the same.
The woman in the sea,
the sea itself,
the breast of a goddess,
like a shell,
she stands inside the chamber
of her nautilus and sings,
and tells us her stories.
We belong to her.
I never stay away too long,
go too far.
I listen when the room is dark,
when life frightens me,
when I have too many questions
and wonder where the footprints
go in the sand.
The old woman reaches inside me,
touches a harp,
and light returns,
and she smiles
far away in some other dream,
whispering,
I live forever,
you are my children,
the lullaby of my soul.