Reflections of Sirenity (a poem by Sylvance DeFleur)


Cyrene's sweet subdivision fills my roaming sight
In all directions. I walk slowly to my plot
And roost beside the waters as the day's last light
Dips slowly 'neath horizon's line, beckoning night.

My feet slip languidly into the waters deep.
The drink slinks soft, cool twixt my toes, and crickets cheep
Their song to me. I inhale deeply of the scent
Of night-time. Though mine eyelids droop I need no sleep.

She calls me. I retrieve my feet and lean ahead.
She smiles at me from where she swims, returns my wave,
But the water's movement changes her. No words are said
Yet dialogue begins. Her ideas rock my head:

For why sweat, sigh, or search high, low?; just find a guy!
Sirens are we; our bodies sure to get us by.
Manipulate. Seduce. The men will do our work.
Those petty fools will live for us, and even die.

I ask her why. For we are Sirens, tall and proud.
We seek to stand equal, on independant feet,
Not giggle whilst the men compete, their blades endowed
To us; who needs such love, casual, flippantly vowed?

She laughs at me. "Such childish foolishness is this!
Live horizontally, in easy, pampered bliss.
Why be the only Siren that is not man-kept?
I really think you've missed the point in life, young miss!"

I shake my head, for we cannot be reconciled:
Two sides of Siren nature - the antipodes
Are closer. I could not be her and also me;
How could I lie my way through life, oft-loved, defiled?
If I embraced her, I could never look proudly
At my reflection, two sides of Sirenity.

FIN

Penned by my hand on the 4th of Glacian, in the year 371 AF.