How Much Does a Mermaid Cost?

 

How Much Does a Mermaid Cost?

(“Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes. He saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road.” Numbers 22:31a)

How much does a mermaid cost in 2020?
If you find one, will you let me know;
but butterflies and angels are free.

I was always told about days like this
when rainbows were absent and the molecules
went painfully right through you.
I was also told about other days
when inhaling oxygen brightened the skies and
wonder cascaded from both strip malls and mountains.

We pay the price for both or at least extend our credit.

When you saw nothing, did you look beneath the air,
did you look behind the veil?
Did you slow your pace in case an angel might
meet you
around the next bend in the road?
Did you drop your backpack in the ditch
to carry nothing on your shoulders to meet
chilly day smoke from woodburning stoves mixed
with fields of hay newly mown.

I cannot converse much about angels (though,
I may have entertained a few), they are fleeting,
they are fast,
they are still, they are stealing away if we
do not stop to behold them. Some wear swords,
some are barefoot, some glow like jazz,
some are homeless. Some are sent
to relieve us of our empty senses and fill
them again with earth and mud,
clouds and sky,
circles and globes,
squares and boxes,
and lines that lead us directly
to the presence of the One who fills all things
(solitary yellow leaf, autumn’s last rose,
wind that makes the trees sound like ocean,
and the oxygen that moves through us like wine).

I am not wealthy enough to purchase a mermaid,
(what is the going rate in 2020?)