Waking, he tells his woe About his sistertwelve And slender like a bow, Taut as the silk an elf
Is stringing. Glints of light Declare he’s lame to halt The arrow of her flight. Birds say it’s not her fault.
The little sands imprint Her passing feetshe is More lovely than the tent Of dawn. She is not his.
Sea pours against the world As she transforms to fish And leaves behind all girl. The boy is caught by wish.
The sea’s a wilding stream Of tears. Inside a shell Like a recurrent dream, Her name echoes its spell.
Marly Youmans is the author most recently of Claire (LSU Press), a sequence of poems, and The Curse of the Raven Mocker, a Young Adult novel. Its sequel, Ingledove, will be published in May by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Copyright 2005 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine. Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.
