My time inside the oceans of earth and sky come to an end once more.
I swim to shore remembering land.
The ache in my heart will remain strong and true–a reminder of all that can be experienced by the soul.
Sometimes a part of me remains tossed and tattered in the undertow.
She doesn’t want to come in when the tides change, doesn’t heed the warnings in the steep sands and dark waves. She is a strong swimmer though, and the seas never keep her from the surface for long.
Her legs become fins, and she slides and glides her way through vast shapes and stories, no matter how many float up from the deep.
To suck in seawater and sink is always an option. To give in to the longing she has to sleep beneath the waves. One like her has sea lungs of course…has learned the ways of breathing the moonlight through the ripples on the surface.
But that is not this, and finally she turns her face towards the shallows and swims to shore.
I watch her slowly returning. Scales and fins still glisten at the edges of her emerging legs, and her tears flow into the sea.
“Thank you Mother,” she is whispering. “Thank you for showing me the depths once more. I am yours, all of me.”
Those final moments are always the most painful–like having sharp shells beneath her feet as she walks from the waters.
They say that she always leaves a small part of herself behind.
She meets me by the treeline where the sand is dry and warm. “I’m ready now,” she says. Her lips are quivering and her chest makes little heaves, still moving in time to the waves.
“I know,” I say, extending my hand toward her. She looks at it for a moment, still uncertain. “The Ocean is in us all,” I say.
She nods and turns back for one last look. “I belong to her,” she says.
‘I know,’ I say, and extend my hand again. This time she is more sure and reaches out to tightly grasp my palm.
For a moment we are still two. I feel the cold fishy parts of her, the webbing and the warble, the slither and swirl.
Then she is gone, and I stand alone watching the night waters rush in.
“I am yours,” I say one last time to the Mother of Life.
My heart remembers, and my feet touch the earth to lead me home.
