Ballad of the Small-boned Daughter

Summary

I've woken in this fearful flood

I've woken in the water

Oh mother did you put me here,

your first-born only daughter?

And can it be that the fishes here

are nibbling at my flesh?

And can it be the sun I see

that faces me in death?

‘You are as beautiful my Jaan

as the words or tears I'll shed’

as she warmed the blade against

her cheek, fine as silken thread.

She disarmed her tongue with one

fine stroke, father held her down.

Then a gloved fist, sealed her in

and dropped her in to drown.

At first the light protested,

strained to touch her face,

yet she died again in the waters

like a disappearing voice.

For six long months she lay like this

whilst the air pulsed with life.

Then in February they found her

under a rippling rod of ice.

The mourners came to pay respects

the mother wailed in white.

The mother had rehearsed sadness

in the mirror all through the night.

Sometimes her daughter came to her

in snow or quiet weather.

She avoided the ghost who smelt

like her small-boned baby daughter.

She couldn't ignore flakes of skin

and hair filling up her bed.

Nightly she lifted the black strands,

then went to sleep and bled.

Unwieldy daughter let me be!

She cried with her voice of wire

You despised all filial duty –

it's the devil you admire!

One day when the grieving mother

was blowing on her tea,

they came for her and the father

and asked them how they'd plead.

We know not how she met her fate,

how she claimed her watery bed.

The only crime we're guilty of

was not to see her wed.

Screens showed the trial in detail,

we followed every note.

We learned about her bloody death,

how they practised knots in rope.

And yes the parents were found guilty

for this was a tale of sin

but who grieves for this girl of seventeen

if not her kith and kin?

Sometimes on a September path

when you're near or hear the water,

press your minds to the open sky,

think of the small-boned daughter.