Friday, August 19, 2005

a mosaic for the bath house


Dear Madame Eclectica,
I would like to donate this picture of a fish mosaic I made some years ago for display on a wall in the bath house.

I lay soaking in the rosemary bath in the recently opened bath house, run by the expansive Madame Eclectica.
It was just what I needed after a somewhat stressful day, spent running hither and thither and seemingly not achieving very much in relation to the effort expended. Here in the baths all you had to do was lie back and allow the water to wash away all the physical and mental dirt accumulated over the last few hours. It was bliss. The smell of the rosemary oil from the crushed leaves was intoxicating. I had been looking at one of the mosaics on the wall and drifted off into a dream. The mosaic was a modern copy of a very ancient original, depicting two fish. Pisces. My zodiac sign.

Pisces, oh pisces
where are you going
drifting along on the crest of a wave?
I´m going to see what my true love will bring me
when I greet him at dawn on the sands of the brave.
What will you wear my fine fishy friend
when you slip out on to the strand?
why, a tail of sorts,
no need for shorts,
and a starfish to put in my braid.
What will he give you, my sweet mermaid,
as he touches the shells on your breast?
why a necklace for sure, from the isle of the blest.
A necklace of coral, beyond compare
that he stole from King Neptune´s lair.
And what will you do in return?
I will give him the moon and the sun,
a garland most rich and most rare,
to wear for a year and day
for we may not meet
each to each for to greet
without the enchantress shall say.
Are you sad
are you glad
are you mad
are you bad
tempered?
I will temper myself as hot steel
and cool my heels
in the shallows
until Lethe allows
our return.

1 Comments:

At 5:30 AM, Blogger Heather Blakey said...

What an amazing mosaic Carol and I do love the verse and mermaid.

 

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