The Mermaid and the Ranger

Entombed in a glacier,
The mermaid hung suspended,
Gazing out over her cerulean prison,
locked away from the very thing that brings her life.

A blizzard had come an October day,
It's wild winds and tempest waves,
Icily crackled through her taut muscles,
unaccustomed to the cold, native to balmy climbs so far hence.

Against her will, the chill seeped into scales
and gnawed at her golden tresses,
her strong arms grew slack with the encapsulating frost.

A tear still frozen in her widened eye, she waited three long years.
The flutter of a pulse growing dimmer,
as mutely she floated immured in the impending doom
of an eternity of this ice tomb.

At the solstice, when the long nights ceded to the silent march of the sun,
A single faint sun's ray chanced to fall across her gelid face,
as a solitary ranger noticed her from a distant mountain.

Picking his way slowly towards her across the expansive seaway struck solid,
he lifted his oil lamp to shine toward the stoic beauty,
so strangely posed as if in mid-drift.

The warmth of the lamp, or was it his smile, melted the tear from her eye,
brought the chance to blink. The opportunity to be seen
and gazed upon and admired ignited the pulse within her once more.

Her flagging heartbeat crescendoed to a cascading drum,
though she had thought it beyond hope.
Little cracks ran and dislodged around her fingers,
and near her cheek the ice splintered.

Revived, her arms grew stronger, her smile wider, and yes,
her laugh began to tinkle through her lungs.
The foreign sound created a cascade of tiny balls of ice
like a tempered glass window breaking.

Hair yet wild with snow, her eyes blazing for hope renewed,
she stared amazed at the ranger, his wooly cloak,
his twinkling eyes, his kind smile.

She moved forward towards him and realized her tail had become legs,
her nubile knees weak, she stumbled into his arms, then pulled away.
Too soon, she feared...

She had never had relied on anyone,
and yet she reached out first and he had caught her.
Curious. How can she trust herself to fall into a man's arms,
 and yet... isn't it what she has always wanted?

Will he vanish? Will the ice pull her back again?
Or will the waxing sunlight be enough for her to walk forward into life?
Will she allow herself to trust the ranger?
Her heart beats like a drum for this new dawn and a sincere friendship.

Jennifer D. Behnke - February 11, 2017 - 1:30 am