Selkie Sorrow

Swept


Passion of seaspawn;
Enraptured in spray,
Against a backdrop of oceansky.
These are the children
Of wave
And current;
Selkie and Mer,
Forms locked
In lusty cascade;
Bodies wracked by storm
And wind.
Swept.

	Waves crash, ticking away at the shoreline like time, and she
stares, wishing for other places; other days.  If she listens closer and
closer still, sometimes she can still hear them murmuring there,
beneath the seafoam--her family.

 	Ronaibheis clutched her shawl tightly about her against the
harsh Irish winds that plagued the Connemerra cliffsides.  Behind her,
the house loomed like a sentinel, dark except for the tiny flicker of
firelight burning upon the hearth.  Within, her children slept while their
father and the wolfhounds snored their incessant lullaby.  She
clutched, and she trembled in the cold, and she remembered:

	Night upon this same shore, a decade ago; dancing skyclad
under bright Mother Moon.  Her selkie sisters watching the patterns of
their merry feet form in the sand, unmindful of who might watch them;
uncaring.  Her brothers chatting among themselves, singing
sometimes, and plotting storms.  When, out of the mists he came,
rough and worn, and slipped her sealskin in his leathern bag, a curse
upon the day that she was born.

	At first, there had been love and gentle words;  soft hands,
although work-worn, had stroked her hair; carressed her cheek.  But
with time, as often happens, soft word turned to harsh reality--she was
stricken from her home.  This was her Otherworld, more than that land
under the waves, and it was hard and cold.

	Children brought little respite;  further work.  Toiling long hours
in childbed, and then after--clothes to be made, clothes to be mended; 
meals to be cooked; pots to be mended.  More and more and more.

	Then:

	Bright light in her daughter�s eyes, the glint of recognition. 
Whispers spoken in twilight and childhood mischief....

		Ronaibheis clutched her shawl tightly about her against
the harsh Irish winds that plagued the Connemerra cliffsides.  Behind
her, the house loomed like a sentinel, dark except for the tiny flicker of
firelight burning upon the hearth.  Within, her children slept while their
father and the wolfhounds snored their incessant lullaby.  She
clutched, and she trembled in the cold, and then she slipped into the
sea....