SIREN SONG See her there with the wind in her hair singing from her rock, calling out to passing ships with naked plea to stop. She'll embrace you. She'll drown you. She makes love beneath the waves. Fishes dance through her floating hair and her arms are a sailor's grave. She loves the men who know the kiss of the stars that roam the night. Who thrill to the violence of a sea-god's wrath with a Viking's wild delight. She needs their hunger for the brooding deep to caress her fathomless soul, for her passions answer no mortal cry but the dirge of a sea-death's toll. Her eyes are deep obsidian pools bathed by the moon's pale light. Her body is a sepulchral reef beckoning in the night. Its promise torments a lookout's watch seeking safe waters to sail, but her eyes are churned by unmapped tides and her cry a rising gale. She's been alone for timeless years singing softly that sad song, singing of some eternal lover from salt-washed ships hard-blown along. Calling out with irresistible voice that no man has yet failed to heed. Sand drifts about these broken boats, their ribs wrapped by clinging weeds. So make your peace and close your ears when she gives voice to that sad cry. Cross yourself, and pray for the soul of a sailor such as I. One who heard and had to know to what such sounds belonged, who dared winter waves to try to love this singer of siren song. -- Patterson , Lorne - Poetry Book Longford Writer -- "Tides and Ceremonies" Mellen Poetry Press c. 1997