Pale Girl, Dark Mage, Green Sea

This poem is actually a prose piece that appeared in the anthology Moonsingers's Friends, a tribute to Andre Norton. To me, it embodies the best of writing .. more easily poetry than clumsy prose.

There was a witch girl lived on a seashore.    
Her hair was pale, her eyes were clear,    
her thought was sheer -    
But oh, her heart was sold.

She loved with a rage a mage,    
who dwelled nearby on a hill    
in  a tower of old chill stone.    
Hour by hour she thought of him,    
there in the tower,    
and of how the dark hair hung    
like sea wrack down his back, blacker than night.    
But he paid her no heed;    
indeed, less than none, do what she might.    
This, her plight.

One day she called upon him,    
in the way of the sorceress,    
dressed in her best. Such magnificence,    
the wind itself did not dare to breathe    
upon a tress of hair.    
Pearls she wore, green gems, clean as her eyes.    
The mage was courteous, and cool.    
Still, he took her about the house, up and down the stairs,    
to north and south, everywhere,    
and showed her the skulls and gloves    
and magic lamps and chemic probes,    
and amphorae of banes, and psychic chains,    
and boons in bottles, imps and astrolabes,    
and last a glass whereby the stars    
might be seen as thick as eyes of grass, if seldom green.

She showed him too    
she was most wise in each,    
though living on a beach.    
He gave her wine and kind unkindness.    
She went away and wept with pain.    
For then he had not said to her -    
Oh, call again, dear girl.    
Each tear, a pearl, fell in the sea.    
The sea said 'Listen'.    
But the witch girl heard no sound    
save the waves' soft fall,    
and that was all.

Year ended.    
Sendings sent the witch in her peeve    
to break the windows, nets of fishermen,    
or next to loose the fish in them.    
The fishers said, Drat that witch with a sleeve of spells.    
And hitched their nets together with regrets.    
But well, she was sorry,    
but the worry of love tormented her, for sure.    
She took courage in her pale slim hands,    
and put on rings and things of wealth,    
and in the guise of empress - yes!    
- she went to call on him again,    
that mage, her black-haired storm-eyed lord,    
in the stony bone of a tower.    
Like a flower trying to seed of need in sand.    
That was her.

So grand she was this time,    
the very air and the earth's rime swooned,    
and the wintry birds croaked out of tune.    
He opened his door like the winter, and he frowned.    
It killed her, that.    
Unkind cold mage, the ice of his eyes    
could have locked the bay for a year and a day.    
He did not ask her in - surprise!    
Despite her glamorous panoply, she must then pretend,    
in all that empty land with miles between each cot and manse,    
she had by chance knocked on the wrong door.    
And so she had, for sure.    
Home then she went, once more,    
And once more wept, and slept no moment of the night.    
Such slights and sorrows, slings and arrows.    
The marrow of her heart, she would have said,    
seemed dead.

But the sea, at dawn,    
swarmed to her sill, and whispered, 'Listen'.    
Unsleeping now, she heard the sea say this:    
If you would seek a kiss, do not go wooing    
in your armor with a sword.    
Naked is love, a child, a sigh, a muted word.    
Both sorceress and empress have their place,    
which is not here - hear me now and know.    
See how I am, vast as a sky,    
yet I upon my endless breadth and deep    
lure men to sleep with my soft smiles.    
But I will aid you, for it is my whim.'

And then the sea swept in,    
like all the tears unshed, which overbrimmed.    
No hope to swim, or save.    
The ocean's architrave wide-opened    
and flung free the house, the shingle,    
and the girl and all her arts, into the sea.    
It raised her and it cast her up,    
and in her shift and hair alone,    
upon the stone step of the towering tower's bleak bone,    
and laid her there, not quite aware.    
And as the sea sank down, the moon flew up    
and on the step was thrown the mage's shadow    
as he leaned to look.    
What hapless helpless victim lay in need of care?    
He saw, and took her in.    
Not winter, then. He warmed her at a fire,    
and gave her sweeter wine, and held her    
to assuage the fear of water and its cryptic charge.    
So lost the game this mage.    
For love comes wending helpless, mild,
a blinded child,    
the sheath of barbs it hides against its side -    
Beware an act of love, which lets love in.    
Beware the dream, the autumn tide, the sea change    
and the charm and foam.    
For long before the sea-moist seasoned night was done,    
There in the stone the flower put down its root, and grew.    
Before the night was through,    
all through the stone was warm.

    The moral:

      That which you wish the most to take,    
      That thirst the most you needs must slake,    
      To take be taken, fly to pursue,    
      The cup to your lip -    
      But let the wine drink you.

      (And yet I must, and will, append,    
      It helps to have a powerful friend.)