A TRAVELER IN WINTER
© Krista Detor, The Silver Wood: Wintersongs
Inspired by T.S. Eliot & Herbert Trench
She looked like a drifter who had washed up on the shore
A dress of seaweed hanging on her, dripping water on my floor
Another traveler in winter, I suppose
Get some warm clothes
And night she brought in with her, when the moon rose
Her hair was matted up with bits of shell and muddy sand
And I built the fire and set a cup of brandy in her hand
Why it was me that found her, I never knew
But night settled around her while the wind blew
I open up my house, don't mind a stranger on my land
The floor is dirt, the walls are wood, and sometimes I am stone,
I am hardened by the water
And the wild wind
And night, it laid upon her, on her white skin
I say, "Steal away the things you hear and most of what you see
Don't let your secrets long betray you to anyone and not to me
I heard the mermaids whisper once
And I told what I knew
But no one would consider that the song was true."
Then night awoke within her, in the dark blue
And across her face, the stars came out and lit the cloudless climes
In all the world and every place I saw her grace a thousand times
When night is on the hillside and the voices roll in from sea
By starlight and by dreamlight she comes to me...
I find them in the Spring and I am always glad to see
All the dresses spun in seaweed lying on the shore for me
I heard the mermaids singing
Like the poet said they do
And I go on believing that they call you ...