Colleen

I'll tell it as I best know how

And that's the way it was told to me

I must have been a thief or a whore

Then surely was thrown overboard,

Where, they say

I came this way from the deep blue sea

It picked me up and tossed me round

I lost my shoes and tore my gown

I forgot my name and drowned

Then woke up with the surf a pounding

It seemed I had been run aground

Well they took me in and shod my feet

And taught me prayers for chastity

And said my name would be Colleen

And I was blessed among all women

To have forgotten everything

And as the weeks and months ensued

I tried to make myself of use

I tilled and planted, but could not produce

Not root, nor leaf, nor flower, nor bean

Lord! It seemed I over-watered everything.

And I hate the sight of that empty air

Like stepping for a missing stair

And falling forth forever blindly:

Cannot grab hold of anything!

No, not I, most blessed among Colleens

I dream some nights of a funny sea

As soft as a newly born baby

It cries for me so pitifully!

And I dive for my child with a wildness in me

And am so sweetly there received.

But last night came a different dream

A grey and sloping-shouldered thing

Said "what's cinched 'round your waist, Colleen

Is that my very own baleen

No! Have you forgotten everything?"

This morning, 'round the cape at dawn

Some travellers sailed into town

With scraps for sale and the saddest songs

And a book of pictures, leather-bound

That showed a whale with a tusk a meter long

I asked the man who showed it me

"What is the name of that strange beast?"

He said its name translated roughly to

He-Who-Easily-Can-Curve-Himself-Against-The-Sky.

And I am without words

He said "My lady looks perturbed

the light is in your eyes, Colleen."

I said, "Whatever can you mean?"

He leaned in and said

"you ain’t forgotten everything."

"You dare to speak a lady's name?"

He said, "My lady is mistaken.

I would not speak your name in this place

For if I were to try then the wind

I swear, would rise, to tear you clean from me without a trace."

"Have you come, then, to rescue me?"

He laughed and said, "from what, 'colleen'?"

You dried and dressed most willingly.

You corseted, and caught the dread disease

By which one comes to know such peace."

Well it's true that I came to know such things

As the laws which govern property

And herbs to feed the babes that wean,

And the welting weight for every season

But still I don't know any goddamned "Colleen".

Then dive down there with the lights to lead

That seem to shine from everything

Down to the bottom of the deep blue sea

Down where your heart beats so slow

And you never in your life have felt so free

Will you come down there with me

Down were our bodies start to seem

Like artefacts of some strange dream

Which afterwards you can't decipher

And so, soon, have forgotten everything.