Poetry Friday: The Mermaid

I'm thinking of mermaids right now because of the Progressive Poem, and I found this mermaid poem that I love because of its mixture of longing and loss, letting go what you can't really possess anyway.


The Mermaid
by Lisel Mueller

All day he had felt her stirring
under the boat, and several times
when the net had tightened, frog-nervous,
he had bungled the pulling-in,
half-glad of the stupid, open mouths
he could throw back.

                                 At sundown
the shifting and holding of time and air
had brought her to the still surface,
to sun herself in the last, slow light
where lilies and leeches tangled and rocked.
He could have taken her then, aimed his net
as dragonfly hunters do when the glassy gliding
of rainbows goes to their heads,
could have carried her home on tiptoe
and lifted her lightly, ever so lightly
over his sill.


See what he does instead in the last stanza, here.

And here's today's roundup.