(Whatever Happened to The Tide and The Moon?)

Beside the sea, unto grimy swells

The fisherman yells, grasps cockle shells

Amid the fog, the grit, and damp

The fisherman lights the oil-lit lamps

“Tuppence-a-pint!” a monger bellowed,

He was a rather stout, pot-bellied fellow

Chewing his tobacco, he suddenly spat,

Unto the tail of a sooten alley-cat.

“A penny for the paper!” a boy cried in haste

His face was reminiscent of pudding and paste

Turning a thimble twice ‘round his thumb

He tinkered with the brass ‘till his fingers turned numb.

In a beating breath of salt and lard

The fisherman trudged the milk-lit yard

With two pails, echoing a synchronised sound

The pale-faced moon refracted light off the ground.

He held evenfall between his teeth

His porcelain teacups, chipped and creased 

Halt, suddenly! The night sky left ajar!

The only light in heaven seemed to be the North star.

On this silver-footed night, of all nights in the year,

The moon had vanished! The sky left austere!

The North star grabbed its face, and whined

“Moon! Come back! You’ve left the sky blind!”

The fisherman knelt upon the briny shore 

And spluttered out a compline prayer of yore 

The waves, breathing with a half-hearted groan

Spat out the moon-man! Cold and alone!

His face was cracking at the seams

Like a china plate, unstitched by the sea 

Palatable; a milk-laden saucer

Stared at me sleepily, his feet submerged in the water.

His body, a twisting ivory spindle 

Held stiff with placenta, naked and dimpled

His eyes enclosed with viscid mire 

Conceived upon the shore of the English Shire.

He took the moon-man by the hand, 

Subdued the sea-foam to help him stand.

He held his head in his hands, and cried,

Mournfully murmuring sweet tales of the tide 

He spoke in dreams, his tongue spun like silk

Behind his eyes sat a pool of pale-blue milk

Let me regard the language of the moon!

Reader, affix your ears to be attuned!

“Sweet tidings, my love,” the moon began 

“She left me for the sleep-sprinkling Sandman!

How could I possibly compete with he?

When he is twice the dreamer I ever shall be?”

The moon wept unto the crevice of his neck 

Tears laden with silkworms and stardust specks  

The Tide softly withered and crept, 

Back unto the seabed, where her silver head slept. 

Her navel cast out in a nautical knot  

Undulating the ocean like an Argonaut

Sleepily stretching out a pointed hand,

Her silver eyes imbued with slivers of sand.

Dear reader, permit me to intervene,

And cast your gaze up to the Land of Dreams.

Where the swirling grit did keep–

There was the Sandman, sound asleep.

The naked Sandman ticked and stirred

Salivating in shadows, without murmur nor word

His arm lifted up, across the sand-dune sky

And rubbed the crevices of his grit-ridden eyes

Half-past twelve, a quarter-to-one

The Sandman awoke, for the day had been done!

With a leap and a jump and a tick of the tack,

The Sandman slinked off, his pouch lain upon his back. 

His pointed slipper upon chimney tops,

Avoiding the pail’s slosh of the chamberpots

He sprinkled sand from eye-to-eye

Each child stumbling unto slumbering as he passed them by.

His fingertips, callous and marred

Rubbed together decisively as he sprinkled each shard

Of dreaming, of weaving–with a breath of deceiving,

Each child’s imagination elaborately conceiving. 

Dear reader, permit me once more,

To cast your gaze downward, towards the sea floor.

Where the Tide and the waning crescent once met,

There sat the Moonman, horribly upset. 

The moon muttered, and spluttered and spat!

“She is colder than Lady Winter against an open back.

She whispers among a seabed of sighs,

She’ll soon permit evenfall to pass itself by.”

But the Tide, she had enough!

Enough of being told that her heart was too tough.

Dear reader, I could not quite believe what I saw!

That evening, the Tide rose up, she unhinged her jaw. 

She lifted her seafoam veil, and cried

“Dare I desire a lover who’s imaginary inside!

And I will do what I want, when I want, when I please

For I am the sea, and nobody owns me.”

The moon-man’s face turned rather flush,

His spindly fingers cradling a handful of dust 

Wherefore; turning his waxen pockets out,

The Harvest Moon’s heart sustained a fair drought.

Half past three, a quarter-to-four

The swollen-eyed fishmongers stood by the sea-shore.

For there were nary a fish to catch! 

For the Tide had gone out, she hadn’t come back. 

Beside the sea, unto grimy swells

The fisherman packed up, he said few farewells

Reminiscing the Moon’s finger lain upon the Tide’s spine, or,

That sliver of evening light the dreamers called moonshine.

Written by Emmanuelle Kate.

Editor and curator of The Secret Garden Journal, Emmanuelle Kate is a nineteen-year-old writer who believes there is nothing more lovely than the act of falling down dream-like literary rabbit holes of fiction and prose. Her published work with The Secret Garden Journal includes a small compendium of her ever-growing collection of poetry and prosaic think-pieces. She has been featured in various other publications, most recently Favourite Child Collective’s ‘Sapphic Longing‘ magazine, and likes to dedicate her spare time to writing articles and blog posts—in between studying for her literary degree and putting together The Secret Garden’s seasonal issues. 

As a fervent lover of classic children’s fiction and their authors—such as Enid Blyton, Lewis Carroll, and undoubtedly Frances Hodgson Burnett—Emmanuelle is working on a novel of her very own that contemporarily echoes the outlandish whimsy of her favourite childhood narratives. @emmyk4te