The Forest - Canto IV
1.
The king however felt misgivings at the power of the ring
and was afraid that it might one day be abused.
He never dared again to wish for anything
since that one wish had so astounded him by coming true.
To make it certain to exclude all possible abuse,
he went out to the far point of his island
where the river mouthed into the sea,
and there he flung the ring into the current,
hoping it would bring it out into the ocean
there to bury it forever.
But however there was one small fish
that saw the golden object glimmer in the water,
and just not to let it go, he simply caught it
in his mouth and wondered what to do with it.
"I know!" he thought. "I shall deliver it
as present to the fairest of all mermaids,
to the ocean king's own daughter I shall give it
as a humble token of my even humbler adoration."
2.
But it was no easy quest our little fish
had found to his commitment, for the sea was vast
encompassing the entire globe,
and the sweet mermaid lived in its profoundest depths
far from the ordinary streams and currents,
but our fish knew how to seek her out.
There was a special natural phenomenon
deep down in the remotest South Atlantic
where the storms make traffic sparse,
and where the billows are notorious for their devastating size,
a whirlpool coming from the bottom of the sea
as the unique accessibility and entrance to the sea-king's dwelling-place,
where also our fairest mermaid had her premises.
Our fish sought out the outskirts of the whirlpool
and allowed himself to follow and get caught therein;
and so he soon was on his way down to the bottom of the sea
where lights increase the further down you get,
the whirlpool being constantly illuminated by the brightest plankton
and the smallest living beings carrying their own light.
3.
Thus gradually the fish was willingly dragged down
into the slowly brightening profoundest abyss
of the South Atlantic where the sea king had his palace.
He had visited the mermaid princess once before,
so he knew well his ways into the royal virgin chamber
where the princess at the moment was quite busy
combing out her long and flowing greenish silken hair.
"My fish! You have returned!" she cried for joy
as she immediately did recognize the small but friendly fish.
"My princess, yes, and with a mission, for I have a present for you."
And the fish delivered what he so by chance had found.
She took it up and marvelled at its perfect rounded form.
There never was a circle made so perfect as this ring,
and she did greatly wonder as to how it had been made
and could not guess, of course, that it had once been shaped
from the last ray of a full moon at morning at its very fullest.
4.
She could not in any other way show her enormous gratitude
than by indulging in a kiss between the eyes of the small fish,
which made him blush considerably.
Never had he been so overwhelmed by such a royal grace.
He swam away beatified, while she had put the ring
upon her finger and resumed her combing;
but of course, like combs so often do, it suddenly got stuck
in that rich hair of hers, and she lost all her patience.
"Useless comb! I wish I had one that would never more get stuck!"
And suddenly there was another comb beside her.
"Where did that come from?" she thought and used it,
and it pleased her greatly by not getting stuck at all,
which made her wonder even more.
5.
As the days passed, she now and then again was taken by surprise
by the alarming fact that her small petty wishes suddenly came true,
and she began to think about how this phenomenon had started.
She remembered well the visit of her small admirer the fish
and tried for luck the innocent experiment
of daring to express a wish without the ring upon her finger.
Nothing happened. She again tried that experiment,
without and with the ring alternately,
and thus, empirically, she found out the secret of the ring.
"This goes beyond me and my limited capacity," she thought
and went with this new worrying problem to her father.
She explained it all to him, he shook his head and couldn't quite believe it,
but she proved the fact to him, which turned him serious.
6.
"My daughter," finally the sea king said,
"this gift from out of nowhere, from a small red herring,
offers us a terrible responsibility,
and we shall have no choice but to apply it well."
She nodded, since her train of thoughts had been the same.
"You know, that all our oceans with all wildlife
seriously are threatened by the recklessness of man.
Our entire world is being poisoned and polluted
by his ignorance and self-indulgent carelessness,
as if he was alone and easily could do alone
without all nature and without all other forms of life,
forgetting that he is dependent on the echo systems
and that they will work and flow without disturbance,
keeping naturally the whole planet clean,
while he alone keeps ruining it with dirt and rubbish.
Several of our rarest species have already been exterminated
by his carelessness and egoistic folly.
Let us do something about it, since we here now have the means."
7.
She instantly caught on and was completely with him.
Thus they went together for the strangest quest
abandoning the safety of their royal palace
at the bottom of the South Atlantic
to embark upon a journey that would last for all their lives,
preserving natural resources everywhere, restoring paradises,
saving species and creating safe environments,
protection areas and wildlife havens
inaccessible to man, the all invading monster,
for the preservation and protection of all kinds of life.
8.
The very last thing they created was this forest,
where they left the ring right at the heart of it
where these two brooks together join to form a junction
and a little island by it, at the bottom of a tiny whirlpool,
where it has been lying undisturbed and unused all since then;
but still its power secretly invisibly pervades the entire forest,
the effect of which is that impurity can not exist here.
Everyone who enters is completely purefied in soul and body
in a natural etheric process, which no one can fail to be affected by
most positiviely, which of course you felt yourself.
9.
When thus they had accomplished their life's work,
the saving of the planet and all wildlife with all nature,
they gave up their earthly sealife and were taken up
to join the spirits of the air, in which community
they still are active even more invisibly
and even more inspiringly constructively
than when they worked concretely physically present
here on earth among us, but we shall not know for certain
how they go on working spiritually
until we one day perhaps will join them."
Thus completed Gabriel his story.
(to be continued.)
Poetry by Christian Lanciai
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Written on 2008-09-17 at 09:52
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