I've waited all year from midwinter through till May

[sovay]

Happy May Day, all.

What is the sea for the man who has loved and left her? She is fire-water, whisky, rum, a roric flame. She is a green-eyed witch; she speaks in tongues. Her coral rings are forged of skeletons; her white shoulders glisten with the dust of powdered bones.

She is memory, the number of numbers, the eye of the world, the mirror of the sea. What is the ocean for the sailor who has loved and left her? The one lover who dissolves the night. A bottomless glass of moonshine.

And sailors? All sea-talkers. The sons of mermen.

—Rikki Ducornet, The Fountains of Neptune (1989)

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

You found it!

Nine

[mer-moon.livejournal.com]

Oh. That quite is so lovely. I'm going to have to track the book down.

Also, happy May day!

[seajules]

Some of her daughters are blue-eyed, however, and some of her sailors merely borrowed from the old men that are mountains. *G*

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Happy May Day to you, also.

That's a lovely quotation there.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Happy May Day, and I hear that one might congratulate you?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, yes, this is surely true.

What does "The Devil's Own" sound like?

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

Thanks! this is lovely. I'm going to have to look up Rikki Ducornet (I've no idea).

And Happy May all around!