Ariel

Poetry

She would carve her heart to that ocean, if only it could accept it,
welcomed by the tide, grown accustomed to the storm,
no place for fallen angels, the only mirror that would reflect her beauty.

Still her hair spools to the shore, blanketing Diana conches
and crassatellas as though an ancient Willow, emerging
from the bedrock, grooved with golden knots and curls.

She stares at the stars with a stone-faced sympathy that would
make even Medusa jealous, before weeping to her siblings:
Miranda, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon,

curdled in the irony that she could hear their songs, yet could not find
them amongst the night sky, while the Orions and Polarises burned silently
against the darkness, glorified despite their imprisonment in the past.

When finally the Moon yawns and the fires along the sea smolder,
she serenades the coast, distracted by a mortal reflection, an unfamiliar beauty, harmonizing with the beating of the tide, until even the coral dances.