A Harmony of Water and Weald Read online

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Sea Foam and Silence

  This Road of Tiny Voices

  I Am a Mermaid?

  Everything I Gave Up

  Cutlery

  Land-shark

  Dogs Are Not for Eating

  As the Sea Sings a Susurrus Lullaby

  In a Flutter

  The Nature of Our Relationship

  Unmoored

  I Didn't Understand

  The Present

  Stillness Like This

  Being Still

  Overboard

  Introductions

  Alf

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Thank you for reading!

  Foreword

  The story of Sea Foam and Silence is an interesting one. To me, anyway. I originally wrote it as a short poetic retelling of The Little Mermaid. Just a glimpse of what the story would look like, if the titular mermaid was asexual.

  Once I’d written it, the story wouldn’t leave me alone, though. There was far more to the story than that single, brief poem. And so I expanded on it, used it as a road map and an outline for a longer piece that became the verse novel Sea Foam and Silence as it exists today.

  The narrative still wouldn’t leave me alone. Writing the verse novel threw up at least two other ideas for a fairytale retelling (in verse), but more than that... I felt that there were still more stories to be told about Maris, Bernhard and Asta. That there was far more to Maris’s explorations of land (and love) than the verse novel had captured.

  Thus, A Harmony of Water and Weald was created. It’s a companion piece to Sea Foam and Silence and while you’ll get more out of this collection if you’ve read that first it’s not required. I’ve included the original Sea Foam and Silence poem to serve as a sort of summary for the verse novel. I hope you’ll find it a fun and enjoyable addition!

  Originally this book was a small collection of poems set during and after the events of Sea Foam and Silence, aimed at exploring more of Maris’s reactions to this strange, dry land that she has chosen to live in. I was aiming for about four poems in each of these two parts of the verse novel. It was just a nice companion extra for people who wanted to see more of this world.

  I should have known that plan wouldn’t last. They never do. As I wrote the poems, the ones set after the verse novel developed a storyline of their own. Um, oops? I had fun exploring Maris’s life after she finds her family, though, and I hope that you’ll enjoy reading about it too.

  Some of these poems are responses to things that readers told me they wanted to see more of, so if you were a reader asking for more of a specific thing I hope that these pieces live up to your hopes in that regard!

  Is this all that I have in store for Maris? The part where I wrote a tiny verse novel with her adventures after the main narrative suggests not! I thoroughly enjoy writing her voice and us humans and life on land can be utterly strange, so maybe one day there’ll be another collection of pieces. For now, though, please enjoy this collection and let yourself flow along with our little mermaid’s adventurous spirit and her discovery of land and human life anew. You might find a new perspective on things we often take for granted!

  Lynn O’Connacht

  28 July, 2017

  Sea Foam and Silence

  She warned of the pain. She did.

  But no warning can prepare you.

  Nothing can.

  She didn’t warn of the hardship,

  Of this confused maze of life.

  How could she?

  How could any of us have known

  What it is like on the dry sand?

  We just watched.

  Life here is so different from

  What we thought we understood.

  It is strange.

  It’s hard, not being able to ask

  Questions, though I have learned some speech

  With my hands. ˆ_ˆ

  He loves to see me dance, he says,

  And I love to see his face when I do.

  It hurts, though.

  He is not at all like I dreamed him,

  But I love him the more for that.

  Does he love me?

  Sometimes... Sometimes I think he does.

  Would he do the same for me as I?

  I hope so.

  I miss my sisters. I love my prince.

  If I could, I’d sing my heart like a whale.

  I miss it.

  I never used to know how to listen.

  I know now. It’s all I do. I listen. ˆ_ˆ

  Dance and listen.

  Listen and dance. Learn. I help when I can.

  I never knew it could bring me such joy.

  Or such sorrow.

  I wonder... will he ever speak of love to me?

  I think I fear the sea now. Just a little.

  I miss home. T_T

  This world has its beauties. The dapple of a forest,

  The birds, warm water that stays in one place.

  I love it.

  I love the gardens. I love the market.

  It hurts so much to be here, but... I

  Am joyful. ˆ_ˆ

  I have made friends here. I have laughed with them,

  Learned with them, played with them.

  I love them.

  She said I would die if he loves someone else.

  Will I die? At the beginning I wanted to. It hurts

  So much. Life isn’t easy, will never be easy, but...

  I don’t want to become sea foam.

  Sometimes I am frightened, but most-times I

  Wish I could sing with life. ˆ_ˆ

  This Roar of Tiny Voices

  The first time I hear birdsong…

  The first time after the Witch gave me legs. ^_^

  That first time, it is a soft thing.

  Small.

  Insignificant.

  Waves of tall-crab life

  Washing over them.

  Like the roar of a storm

  Where you cannot hear the whales

  Unless you go down and deep.

  Birdsong isn’t like that.

  Tall-crab sounds aren’t like that.

  It is… flat.

  There is no down.

  No up.

  Forward, backward,

  Sideways. Everywhere is pain.

  Those first days…

  Sea legs, they call it,

  This trouble with how still the ground.

  I laugh

  And I am not sure if I am delighted

  Or if I am sick with longing for my sisters. :/

  But the birds.

  The first time I hear it,

  Truly hear it,

  Without the din of a city

  Overpowering their call,

  I am driven to my knees.

  Tall-crabs seem to delight

  In my ignorance, but this…

  This startles them. I think.

  Their eyes grow wide

  And there is this hitch

  In their breathing.

  I was walking beside the…. Carriage?

  I think they call it a carriage.

  I was walking beside it,

  Despite the pain and

  Despite the fuss

  Because I did not want to be shut away

  From this beautiful world.

  Oh, I make it sound like there

  Was silence and then all at once

  The birds.

  I am, aren’t I? T_T

  It is not like that.

&nb
sp; There is a hush,

  Travelling,

  True. With the horse’s steady rhythm

  On the ground and the low chatter of voices.

  The chunk-chunk of the… round thing.

  A wheel!

  It’s called a wheel!

  I do not think my sisters would have

  Much use for a wheel in the sea.

  But I had not noticed the birdsong.

  I was too intent on my feet

  And on learning how to walk

  Without expecting the currents

  To pull me this way or that.

  Air is so much weaker than water.

  And then, suddenly, I do. ^_^

  I hear them.

  I hear them and

  It is beautiful.

  I stop and I fall to my knees

  Because the birds over the sea

  Have never sounded like that.

  Not this roar of tiny voices –

  And they are tiny

  The tall-crabs have pointed out the birds

  That make them and they fit

  Into my hands.

  They wouldn’t make a meal –

  All mingling and overlapping

  And I weep salt tears.

  I have learned,

  In those first days,

  That it alarms tall-crabs when I lick

  The tears away.

  These are all, all of them,

  The same birds, tall-crabs tell me.

  There is one who likes watching birds as much

  As I like watching tall-crabs. It is… ^_^

  The small one,

  The one everyone listens to,

  Who pulled me from the waves,

  He makes us halt.

  They argue, the tall-crabs,

  But I do not pay much attention.

  The tall-crab that likes birds

  Is squatting beside me

  And murmuring words

  That make little sense to me.

  There are other birds, we hear.

  An infrequent, deep roocoo-coo.

  Unexpected, distant, just the one.

  Unlike the chirp-chirp of a hundred little

  Bird-voices, where you can half-guess

  When next they’ll sing.

  I have never heard so many voices

  All together, all alone in a group.

  It reminds me of my sisters,

  The way we’d sit on the rock

  To lure tall-crabs down into the water.

  It reminds me of my sisters,

  The way we’d play and chatter

  Before the day is done and

  Our hunger drives us to hunting.

  A small, yellow-breasted bird

  Appears on a branch before me.

  If I were in the water,

  If I had fins,

  It would be close enough to catch.

  But tall-crabs are slow

  And laborious.

  So all I do is look

  As the bird flits and flitters.

  Its tail is blue on top.

  Like the sea when seen from above. ^_^

  Its feathers look… wild.

  My sisters and I…

  Below the water,

  Everything is smooth and slick.

  Glib. Quick. Slippery.

  The birds feathers are…

  Not that.

  They are wild and disordered,

  Sticking this way and that

  And even in the weaker current

  I wonder how it moves, like that.

  The small tall-crab has made

  Us all rest here. There is food,

  Dry and coarse and strange still.

  I am not keen on tall-crab food. :(

  There are two larger birds now.

  Too far for me to catch.

  They are fighting.

  I know because the air is like the sea

  And I can interpret their movements

  In these currents in a way that I cannot

  With tall-crabs. It is the up and the down.

  I find myself weeping again.

  It is called weeping. It is strange…

  Tall-crabs weep salt tears too

  And I long to ask why,

  But I do not know how.

  I want to know whether tall-crabs

  Could cry a sea into existence.

  Why else would tall-crab tears be salt?

  They chase away the birds,

  The tall-crabs.

  I do not know whether to be grateful

  Or to be sad because it was the closest

  To home that I have seen in days.

  I miss the sea.

  I did not think I would miss it as much as I do.

  The bird wings sound like

  The snapping of sails in the wind.

  But softer, smaller, gentler, and deliberate.

  Heaw heaw the birds song. Heaw heaw.

  These are small and brown,

  Almost impossible to spot,

  But the tall-crab who likes birds

  Points them out to me.

  Caw caw. Black and grey and

  Big. These birds are as big as gulls.

  They do not come near us,

  Though perhaps it is more because

  Tall-crabs insist on chasing them away.

  I try to ask ‘why’ of the tall-crabs,

  But they do not listen. :(

  Rain has joined us,

  A soft pitter-patter amongst the leaves

  That grows gradually louder

  And more frequent.

  Fat drops that make it past the canopy

  And fall onto our heads.

  We are hurried into the carriage,

  Some of us.

  I still do not understand

  Why tall-crabs are so fearful of the sky’s water,

  But it means that the birds disappear

  Until the next morning.

  I can’t see them from the carriage anyway. :(

  I Am a Mermaid?

  Sometimes I do not understand tall-crabs. :(

  More so than usually anyway.

  Usually I can find a way to understand.

  I did not understand why

  They eat with tools

  Until I tried to eat

  Something that my hands

  And teeth could not tear

  Apart.

  Tools helped me.

  Tools contain liquids.

  Tools allow them to move

  Over the sea and move faster

  Over the land.

  Tools keep them safe

  From those who would attack them.

  Tools to store knowledge

  So you do not have to remember

  Everything.

  Tall-crabs have to remember so much

  About tools, I’m glad they have tools

  That are called ‘books’.

  I am trying to learn

  How to read.

  It is frustrating

  Even more so than

  Learning to speak

  With my hands.

  Even more so than

  Walking. I am glad

  It hurts less now. ^_^

  I am learning how to read

  And there is a story about

  A ‘mermaid’. Someone who

  Lives in the sea and lures

  Sailors to their doom.

  I know it is talking about

  My sisters, but I don’t know

  How it can get things so wrong. T_T

  I suppose… we get a lot wrong

  About tall-crabs as well.

  Maybe it’s the same? ^_^

  I have never had a word

  For my sisters and I.

  Not the way that tall-crabs do.

  It’s strange and I am not

  Reading further b
ecause it hurt.

  I am shedding salt tears again.

  I throw myself onto my bed

  Dramatically because that is

  Something I have heard tall-crabs do.

  It is like falling into a mound of kelp.

  I think. It’s odd and strange and

  I don’t think I’ll be doing that again.

  But the tears are still falling

  And I don’t know why.

  I miss my sisters.

  I miss my sisters.

  I miss my sisters.

  I miss singing with my sisters.

  I miss moving right.

  I miss feeling light.

  Tall-crab clothes are heavy.

  Cumbersome.

  Lying on the bed

  In this slick softness

  That is nothing like home,

  I only feel worse. T_T

  So I get up and start moving.

  This way, that way.

  Swing my arms.

  Kick my feet.

  Twirl. Jump.

  Duck. Bend.

  Jump again.

  Bend my arms.

  It isn’t the same

  As swimming, but

  It makes me feel better.

  When I am sticky with sweat

  And flush with heat, I stop.

  I am panting. My hair is sticking

  To my face, my neck.

  It has escaped the bounds

  In which it was trapped.

  It isn’t home, but

  It is close enough.

  I am a mermaid?

  This is what tall-crabs think

  Of my sisters and I? :/

  I wonder if a tall-crab

  Has ever wanted to be

  A mermaid like I was.

  They don’t have any stories

  Of Witches that would grant

  You those wishes. :/

  Perhaps this isn’t about

  My sisters and I, this story.

  There is one I know about seals

  Living the way that tall-crabs do,

  But underwater and they do not

  Live like that at all. :/

  I wish I had the words

  To tell everyone about

  The sea. The real sea. ^_^

  I suppose if I want to

  Tell people about the sea

  I should study more.

  I’m tired and my feet hurt

  And reading is hard.

  How do tall-crabs learn

  All those squiggly lines? O_O

  I don’t want to

  Practice anymore today. T_T

  I’ll just keep moving

  And moving and moving

  Until I am too tired to move

  Any further. And maybe

  Somehow

  It’ll feel like home.

  Everything I Gave Up

  I don’t get up today.

  I don’t want to.

  I tried. Once.