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Read Full Poem
BECAUSE I AM A MERMAID
Why do you visit the shore so often?
– Because I am a mermaid.
You lived out there in the wild sea?
– I did, it’s where I learned to swim. The storms, they taught me courage and the calm it showed me joy.
And the bottom? The very bottom, deep, deep down underneath?
– Oh yes, I’ve been there too. So far, sometimes, I thought I’d never see the sun again. But that’s the sweet thing about darkness — it helps you find your own light.
Sadness then? Is there sadness out there? Or can you swim from it like you can’t here on land?
– No one can hide from their sadness, no matter how fast they move. But the ocean taught me to welcome it and I now love it like an old friend. It only ever visits to remind me how wide and how vast I’ve loved.
How about beauty — the kind that stirs in your chest and makes you feel alive? Can that be found out there too?
– Oh, that exact kind, yes. And once you’ve been to the bottom and learned to befriend your own grief the beauty seems to show its face in nearly everything you see.
So then why, with all that it’s given you, with freedom and clarity and thankfulness and bliss, would you leave and live here on land?
– Because, as anyone who’s ventured out far enough knows, once you find peace in the ocean you’ll want to make the world a little more like the sea.
Will you ever return then? Back out to your home?
– Someday I will, I’m sure of it, when I’m finished sharing what I can. But until then I’ll visit the shore.
Because you are a mermaid?
– Yes, because I am a mermaid.

YOU ARE MY SPRING by Michael F. DuBois

“If I am a tree then you are my spring,
bringing life to my being with the love that you bring.
And I will grow tall and plant seeds all around
and wherever you look your love will be found.
And those seeds will grow and plant seeds of their own,
starting cycles of life from the kindness you’ve shown.
The air and the leaves and the rain up above,
all will exist because you chose to love.”

BE THE OCEAN by Michael F. DuBois

“Be the ocean. Be ever changing but always the same. Be simple and transparent with an entire world deep down inside full of odd and interesting creatures. Be calm, be still, but let yourself get wild and lost in a storm from time to time. Have many homes, on many shores, and be slightly different at every one. Let people in, let them feel free and surround them with every bit of your being – asking for nothing in return. Take in sharp rocks and all the broken glass and return them back as beautiful treasures. Be routine but never predictable, and be so loved that people spend their days sitting by your side. Be free and vast, and be deep and powerful, all the while being completely moved by something greater than yourself.”

WISH FOR LIFE by Michael F. DuBois

“Do not wish for happiness, wish for long adventures with many winding paths. Wish for love, even love which shatters your heart, and the patience to see that it can never fully break. Wish for storms – empty, aching winter storms seemingly without end, so that you may know on the first breaking day the true loving warmth of spring. Wish for rain, all of it the old skies have to offer and use it to grow when the sweet sun shines again. Wish for dawns – for dawns and dusks and long days in between spent beside people who fill you up – and some, perhaps, who remind you to fill yourself. Wish for crisp autumn endings and for summer breezes filled with pine air and hope. Do not wish for happiness – no. Not only, at least. Wish for much more. Wish for life.”