Ariel

The ocean was dreaming. Whalesong echoed from shore to shore, finding resonance in the tops of mile high mountains and fleeing from the sucking silent darkness of the deepest trenches. The dream was movement, fragility, perfect balance on sharpest edge.

All things long to be more themselves. Water kisses the moon and caresses the wind and becomes waves. Waves dash themselves against rocks to become foam. And what is briefer and lighter and frailer than foam? The whalesong carries the answer to shore: beauty.

The foam, understanding, reaches out for support, for solidity. More permanence is needed to bear the weight of such transience. Form for what cannot be contained, a marriage with sand and sun and stone. Soft skin, softer breasts, long arms, silky hair, glittering tail. Flickering in the distance, always darting out of sight, in fleeting glimpses, always far off through rain and mist, never possessed, only drowning people know her touch. Exquisite, the sea’s answer to snowflakes.

The ocean smiles and sleeps on.