My mother always told me that the sound the ocean made was the song of drowned sailors. She sang her story in her lilting voice as we sat on the white sand warmed by the sweltering sunlight upon our cheeks.That rolling expanse of deep blue hums with power as it lilts back and forth. As it breaks upon the beach it roars with the song of those drowned sailors and the screech of mermaids who feast upon their salted flesh and drink their blood as though it is wine.

Watery graves for sailors, glinting and rumbling and laughing. ‘See the gold fringed edges of the sea, glinting like coins. Those are little wishes, prayers thrown to the ocean by women and men to spare their sailors songs for their brightly colored homes. Those are payment for the sea. So she doesn’t devour their song for herself. They glint coming together at the very middle of the ocean to light a path for the sailors on their way home.

As the sun sets upon the teal waves she pays her tribute to those the ocean has taken for her own. She paints the sky with their blood diluted with salty water and sea foam. The sky tints pink and purple, muted orange and begins painting itself black to mourn those lost. She embroiders her shroud with their souls and they twinkle down looking upon those they loved, whose prayers could not compare to the blue of the sea. The beach is tinted a muted rainbow hue and the last rays of the sun die and she begins to don her shroud. The sea is colored like a kaleidoscope, the waves like rolling opals. Dipping and leaving their color upon the sand.’

She takes my hand and leads me off the beach.

‘Hear the sea grow louder little un. She is singing the sailors song alongside the mermaids who preen at the moon. They have come to pay their respects to give back the bones of those they stole from us today, as seashells.’

The wind rustles back my salted hair and kisses my sunburnt cheeks singing a sailors song alongside my mother. The song runs on and I throw in a wish to the sea to give back my mother her husband so that she may sing songs of love, rather than those of loss.  I pray throwing in all my gold to the mermaids preening at the moon, for my fathers ship to sail smoothly through the path of lit gold singing the song of a sailor.

Featured artwork by SSH