I am a long-haired mermaid.  I have glistening fins and shiny scales,
My beauty is pale in comparison to my dear friends’ ocean wails.
I am going to see these lovely friends today,
Deep in Antarctica’s icy waters where their chorus plays.
Minke whales, and of them, a baby so sweet and nice,
His name is Koori, but I called him, “Ice”.

One pretty morning, a large fellow called, “Ship” came floating on by,
Along with a story that made us all want to cry.
“Dear mermaid,” he said, “I am so very sad and all alone,”
“You have so many friends.  I wish I had but one to call my own.”
I offered my friendship, to which he replied, “So kind, but I am sorry to say it’s true,”
“You are too small.  To have a friend your size would be a day that I rue.”
At a loss for words, he felt it fitting to say in place of mine,
“I need one of your whale friends to play my games of maritime.”

So off “Ship” and our largest whale friend went.  Not even a day passed by,
Before “Ship” returned alone and said with a long sigh;
“I am still so very alone.  Not one friend alone will do,
I have come back now to ask for four or two.”

Despite his rude demands, we still felt sympathy.  So off four more went,
Surely his desire for more friends after now will be fully spent.
Sadly, again the next day, he returned with none and yet asked for not four,
But ten, eleven, nay, two dozen Minke whales more!

“Ice” and I again were told that we were not worth the bother, being so bitty.
We felt left out and sang, to a reddish, cloud-covered sky, “What a pity!”
Oh well.  As long as there was my best friend, “Ice”, here,
I would miss my big friends, but I would not fear.
“Someday soon,” I reassured ‘Ice’, “our other friends will miss us and come back along,
There was no way, however, that I could have been more wrong.

“Ship” came back a while later and he said to “Ice” and me,
“There are no big whales to play with left in this frozen sea.
We need but one more whale to finish my ongoing game,
Your friend, dear mermaid, is too small, but I shall take him all the same.”

“Please, you cannot take him!  For “Ship”, if you did,
I will have the same lonely problem that I helped you to rid!”
Ignoring my words, he came for my friend.
“Ice” did not want to go, but was forced in the end.
It did not matter how I reasoned or begged.  He took my friend away.
So now I will swim and sing alone, I surmise, until my dying day.

~Gazzie