Ocean Nymphs

The stepping stones that lead
down the mountainside
and to the pristine waters below,
whose waves push and pull
the sands to form pristine hills
of the finest white grains.

The coconut palms stretch their limbs
shading the king crab's den.
And fish in the colors of autumn sky
swim about in the shallow rifts
fed full of noodle-thin algae dye
and the creatures that crawl along reefs.

Under the piercing sunlight of noon
is where the thick-skinned creatures lay
dabbling in the pleasures of shore
before they return to their sinking seas.
It's where they grow hands from fins –
and walk in search of the mountaintops.

Perhaps that is where they came from;
the people of the dunes and the hills,
before they disappear again
at the call of beaked birds and burning gills.
Yet for now they will marvel in beauty
with voices quite like precious diamond.

Sailors of Greece will call them white maidens
although they are clothed in the darkest of skin;
for their eyes shine brighter than the moon
as it kneads the waters of the ocean.
Portsmen and merchants and maidens alike
will marvel at the beauty of their strife.

Some prophets will call them the nymphs
of the likeness of brazen gods.
Some travelers will make their aquaintance
and swear these creatures belong
among the winds of the water
as much as our new earth at dawn.