The Wood-walker’s Story, a poem by Ulrich Wendt

These many years, I have been required to live near water –

Beaverkit Lake, the Whitemouth and the Birch Rivers,

A fen or even a simpering creek.

This comes from having married a mermaid.

There was, of course, the usual period of adjustment.

In spite of mutual passion,

She would escape to the water, I to the trees.

And she would try to follow me into the brush

Despite the inconvenience of her scaly tail.

Or on a weedy bank, I would endure time passing

As she gathered pearls among the pale pink water-lilies,

The bubbles breaking through her waving hair.

And so we lie at night whispering sweet endearments

Entwined in one another’s arms

Each acutely aware that one dreams of the sea

The other of the tangled wood.

Sculpture by Kerrie Atkinson