Tag Archives: mermaid

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mermaid vacation

Do mermaids go on vacation? I think they would come up rivers and explore. Lie around on the banks and talk about the ocean and whales and fish and annoying tourist boats.

I took this yesterday on the Hoh River.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: mermaid.

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stranded mermaid, cilia and tubulin

I took this photograph last summer at North Beach. I thought she looks like a stranded mermaid, thrown up on shore. I couldn’t move her, she was twice my length. The rock attachment had come too, up from our sea beds.

Happy solstice. Today marks the one year day from when I realized that I was having my fourth round of pneumonia, with hypoxia, agitation, fast twitch muscle dysfuntion and felt sick as could be. I am way better but not well. That is, I still need oxygen to play flute, to sing, to do heavy exercise and to carry anything heavy. Which is WAY better then having to wear oxygen all the time. Today I find a connection between the lungs and the brain, in quanta magazine. This video talks about a new found connection between cilia and the brain. We were taught that cilia and flagella are for locomotion, powered by tubulin. However, this shows that cilia behave like neurons and there is a connection. Since my peculiar illness seems to involve cilia dysfunction in my muscles and lungs, so that I get pneumonia, and the brain, because I am wired when it hits, this is a fascinating connection. If neurons developed from cilia, the dual illness makes a lot more sense. Hooray for quantum mechanics! We use it in medicine every single day.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/before-brains-mechanics-may-have-ruled-animal-behavior-20220316?mc_cid=80d950ddd6&mc_eid=5faa14000f

Happy solstice! Here comes the sun!

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small child

You work at healing
For years

You dive in the swamp
Of your psyche
Turn over the mud
Tunnel through it
Breath it
See lilies arise
From the muck

The Beloved is a deer
Dainty hooves
In the swamp

At last you come
To bedrock

So you rest
Bedrock
You think

Until you notice
A chink in the rock
You look away
You avoid it

At last you look
It isn’t going away

The Beloved is a bittern
In the reeds

Fluid leaks
From the chink

Foul black bilious
Acidic
Burning holes in the slanted rock
Again you look away
But not for long

You step forward
Touch the rock

I am present you say
Who is there?

The stream of foul black
Increases
Pours from a widening crack

Beloved is a tiger
Paw against the rock

You see the acid burning
Her paw
But she does not run
She stands guard

Who are you?
You whisper

The rock crumbles

There is a child

“Go away” says the child
Ancient

No you say
Beloved and I
Stay present

The black is swirling around you
It’s hard to keep your footing
Beloved, an orca
Steadies you, swimming

No one stays says the child

We stay present you say

I was born I loved I was abandoned When I was afraid

We are present now you say
Swimming by the Beloved
Hand on black fin

I was abandoned When I grieved

We are here now you say

I was abandoned In my despair

We are here you say

You say
You fought
Out of love
You argued
Out of love
You gave
Out of love
Please child
Let us cradle you

The child is silent

The tide is slowing
The rock has crumbled away
A trickle of clear water bubbles

You will stay? says the child

We stay you say

Beloved is a whale
Singing in space
Singing to the stars

Am I lovable? says the child

You and Beloved
Earth and sky
Wind and trees
Moon and stars
Answer yes

Am I loved?

Yes
Yes

8/27/2007

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Sea of Love

Poem: Sea of Love

I go in the sea
of dreams
open the chest
the trunk
the saddlebags
Empty the dirty laundry
Of emotion
On the floor
Grief and joy
Fear and hope
Mine
All mine

There is a place
Beyond words
I see you in that place
It is very old
And very young
It is so frightening to go there
Lose words
The first time
It is haunted and hunted


Are you aware
Of that place
Do you go there
Of your own volition?
Or do you struggle
Fight and suffer in the
Choppy boundary between air and water
Fear drowning
Water surrounds you
Above you too
You are in the wordless place
Over your head
Are you too deep?

Open your eyes
In the green water light
A mermaid waits to lead you
To a rope to a raft
And me

But first you must open your eyes

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mermaid

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: quest.

mermaid

when I was born, they took my skin

i had no skin
i was frightened
i wept

a witch came
she studied me
i turned my head from the spoon

“Good,” she said, “You may refuse it if you want.”

She gave me the gift of anger

it was the only defense I had

but over the years
I studied and thought
and I found my tears
and I found my fears

i made my skin of tears
this took me many years
one tear for each scale

at last it is done
my skin
is complete

i smile at the sky
as i don it

i slip into the water
and i am gone