Fantasy at Fleet Pond

Fantasy at Fleet Pond

That late afternoon she appeared to me

I was just a mere youth in sole secrecy,

observant of nature, alone with the wild

but a typical, naive country bred child,

just sating compulsive scholarly needs

in a hide amongst those stiff green reeds

and erect brown rushes by a narrow ledge,

a promontory at the frozen water's edge

delivering clear vision, long ago it seems,

but even today she still haunts my dreams.

With her slender arms held aloft and wide,

and her head tilted wistfully to one side,

auburn locks lingering across one shoulder

mystical, serene, first cautious then bolder

ascending from the ice mat across Fleet Pond,

Arthurian vision, but from whose magic wand,

yet more is revealed of this picturesque scene

as two swans in homage fly up to their queen,

symbolic attendants in pure white they greet

then settle down delicately, right at her feet.

Crimson orb, winter low beneath the cloud,

now prises apart the misty grey shroud,

traces rose pink tracks across dappled ice

and into my pond princess breathes new life;

from some distant time in history’s page

she steps gently onto this glacial stage

then starts her dance, very slowly at first,

pirouettes, pas de deux and then she bursts

into agile twists, turns and leaps in the air

in this silent ballet, nature’s 'danse d'hiver'.

Fog filtered sun burns her flying mane red

forms a flaxen halo encircling her head

animates glimpses of gold thread by its light

creating a bird flock in synchronised flight

woven intricately into that twirling gown,

as in dervish frenzy she springs up and down,

spinning so fast that my eyes cannot focus

bewitched by this mind numbing hocus pocus,

then she stops, curtsies and to my great surprise

gently lowers her robe right down to the ice.

So naked as a bough of the northern beech,

stood sentinel around the pond’s every reach,

my pubescent mentor with brazen displays

of the essence and nature of woman in ways

so erotic, alluring, makes new feelings rise

in a young virgin boy disbelieving his eyes;

with burning passion she lets her hands roam

to parts of her body, to me quite unknown,

from gentle gyrations to muscular spasm

in climax my nymphette achieves her orgasm.

My mystery seductress, her mission not done,

is now perfectly framed by the setting sun

in the centre arch of the old Norman bridge

supported by the granite and earthen ridge

that splits into two these separate sweeps

of ancient wetlands, with dire secrets they keep

of her doleful drowning beneath this lagoon,

of this spectre, which fades at the rising moon,

so with slim white fingers she gestures in haste

beckons me to her across that solid white waste.

Silent songs from the soul of this medieval child

complete the entrapment, my mind so beguiled

by her dance, her verse, each designed to entice

as she sinks with the sun, reunites with the ice,

I rush from the reeds, do this deed “mens rea”

since, lamenting, she begs I no longer delay her,

offering outstretched hands for me to clutch

yet her crystalline fingers snap off at my touch

then the physics of freezing water and weight

in reaction determine my eternal fate.

The newspaper headlines, in manner austere,

reported me drowned, said there’s one every year,

and melodramatically, quite worthy of Byron,

ventured to boast that some ghost, some siren

had sounded my death knell, like those gone before,

revenge on cruel youths in a boat out from shore,

who took her by force whilst the winter sun set,

then in fright cast her out like an old fishing net,

they left her to drown with the bank far beyond,

where its dark and cold in my hide at Fleet Pond.