Poem for Wednesday

Seals at High Island
By Richard Murphy

The calamity of seals begins with jaws.
Born in caverns that reverberate
With endless malice of the sea's tongue
Clacking on shingle, they learn to bark back
In fear and sadness and celebration.
The ocean's mouth opens forty feet wide
And closes on a morsel of their rock.

Swayed by the thrust and backfall of the tide,
A dappled grey bull and a brindled cow
Copulate in the green water of a cove.
I watch from a cliff-top, trying not to move.
Sometimes they sink and merge into black shoals;
Then rise for air, his muzzle on her neck,
Their winged feet intertwined as a fishtail.

She opens her fierce mouth like a scarlet flower
Full of white seeds; she holds it open long
At the sunburst in the music of their loving;
And cries a little. But I must remember
How far their feelings are from mine marooned.
If there are tears at this holy ceremony
Theirs are caused by brine and mine by breeze.

When the great bull withdraws his rod, it glows
Like a carnelian candle set in jade.
The cow ripples ashore to feed her calf;
While an old rival, eyeing the deed with hate,
Swims to attack the tired triumphant god.
They rear their heads above the boiling surf,
Their terrible jaws open, jetting blood.

At nightfall they haul out, and mourn the drowned,
Playing to the sea sadly their last quartet,
An improvised requiem that ravishes
Reason, while ripping scale up like a net:
Brings pity trembling down the rocky spine
Of headlands, till the bitter ocean's tongue
Swells in their cove, and smothers their sweet song.



Fic Recs Crossposted From :

On mailing lists this morning, Nadja Lee's wonderful and sad "When Love and Duty Collide" and BrallaQueen's "Age Difference" (will both presumably be archived at Library of Moria and FellowShip at next updates).

told me to read href="http://www.libraryofmoria.com/aragornboromir/thesummons.txt" target="linked">"The Summons at the Library of Moria. Aragorn's haunted, Boromir comes back, tragic events ensue, it's quite unexpected and really wonderful.

PlasticChevy has finally finished href="http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=652532" target="linked">"The Captain and the King" over at fanfiction.net and her own site. I still grind my teeth every time Gilly Sue is mentioned but there's enough A/B in the final chapter to make up for everything (Arwen might as well not exist in this universe) and her writing and research are extraordinary. Go set aside a block of time to read it!

Beryll posted a wonderful A/B story from Arwen's point of view, "What Might Have Been," this morning on LOTR_Adult_Fiction. It's not up on Of Elves and Men yet but I'm betting it will show up on her web site first anyway!


Gacked from -- should I worry?


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