She, and the Song of the Sea

[The Hag by artist Iain Lowe, as seen at pagannews.com]

I.

She

stood

at the top

of the dunes,

looking out

to sea,

a tall staff

in her left hand,

the wind blowing back

her long and tangled hair,

cape billowing

like it might

suddenly

take wing.

The skies were gray

and lowering

in spring storm,

the pounding

of the sea

so loud

and wild,

the only other sound

she could hear

was her own

triumphant,

beating

heart.

This was her

very first day

in a new land,

and yet she knew

she had

at last

come home.

II.

The day

she left

the sea

behind,

she left

her spirit

perched

in the branches

of Grandmother Cedar,

for safe-keeping,

for she

hoped
and dreamed

one day

she would

be back.

III.

Now,

she hopes,
perhaps

in some

alternate

universe,

she's living

somewhere
the life
she might
have had,

in a one-room cabin

off the grid,

at the edge

of the forest,

the sea

lapping at 

her front door,

and

nothing

man-made

within  sight or sound

for twenty miles

or more.

Wolves

patrol

these forests,

and eagles

sing

her mornings awake.

Sunrise

and

sunset

bookend

day

after

perfect

peaceful

day,

and the

somnolent

song of the sea

lulls both

her waking

and

her sleeping
hours.

Here

some part of her

will perhaps

live out

her final days,

in deep

wilderness,

where

she

the most

belongs.

Hmmmmmmm. I started this for Poets United's Think Tank prompt: She. But think it might also do for Real Toad's prompt, to take something from An Old Man and the Sea and write a poem. Two birds with one stone!