In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Misplaced
Misplaced – A (sort-of) Fairy Tale Poem
©April 1oth, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
She walked on to the cliff-edge sheer,
The slope to sea was steep.
She went to where the winds blew drear,
And fished in waters deep.
In waters deep she went to fish,
For she had lost her soul.
A witch told her, to get her wish,
She’d have to sing hers whole.
For long ago, she’d lost her heart
To a sailor lost at sea.
She wept, for they had grown apart –
They were not meant to be.
He’d toyed with her, and made her sick
With love that he’d well-feigned,
Then went away sans word, so quick,
She’d languished and felt stained.
Her soul had crumbled to a shell
And crawled away to sea.
Her body, to her, felt a hell –
She could not bear to be.
For all around her, people stared
And spoke in soft, quick tones,
For outcast she had been declared,
She was exiled, alone.
She fished by day, by night so blind,
She fished all summer long
Her soul was what she’d hoped to find –
She sang her lonely song.
She saw a strange new fish one day
With scales of silver-blue.
It sang her song, and bade her stay
To see her wish come true
So stay she did, and came one night,
By moonlight, she did glimpse
A shadow walk with step so light
From sea to shore, a nymph!
No nymph it was, but just her soul,
Which she had sought to find,
Come tripping over waves so cold,
And through her body twined.
She cried aloud in joy and pain
When united they did stand,
And then the waves pulled her again,
And soon they left the land.
Now, down within the ocean deep
There lives a strange new life
Resembling a girl who keeps
Her soul devoid of strife.
But when her memory is swirled
From ancient grief and pain,
The ocean comes to flood the world,
And hearts are torn again.
And those whose souls are oft misplaced
In those who break their trust
Are cast adrift, from life displaced,
Until they turn to dust.
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Submitting simultaneously to The Daily Post and to NaPoWriMo
