Tale of the Magic Mirror
People said she was ugly,
this simple girl of fifteen springs.
At home she didn’t have a mirror,
because her parents thought
her fragile heart would break
if she saw her face so very ugly.
She liked to be alone
with herself, often going out,
to swing her legs in the clear water
of the nearby placid pond,
and play with the floating water lilies,
but never ventured to go in the deeper
waters for she didn’t know how to swim.
One full moon night
when the shining water was calm,
she saw the pond turn into a mirror,
reflecting her ugly face
onto her shocked eyes.
She then decided not to look
in the water mirror ever again,
but would make a special mirror
of her own that would show
her a beautiful face she longed to see.
She earnestly did this
polishing a steel plate
with the sturdy stems of water lily,
and made the magic mirror of her own,
where she saw her smiling face
as beautiful as the flower.
She then told people,
her mirror could magically turn
all faces into lovely flowers.
People said she had become insane.
This made her inordinately sad,
but found consoling refuge
and joy in her image she saw,
smiling like the water lily
in the magic mirror
One spring, in the gleaming twilight hours,
when the pond water was rippling the hues
of the setting sun, she was plucking the water lilies,
her magic mirror she carried always with her,
slipped from her unwary hand,
and as it submerged and disappeared
in the deep waters,
she immediately plunged
on an impulse in the pond,
and sank with the mirror at the bottom
and lay motionless to see
for the last time her smiling face lying beside
her magic mirror.
On her sixteenth birthday
people found the pond
covered with blooming water lilies,
they said beautiful.
__________________
January 14, 2023
Contest : Metrical Tale
Sponsored by : Hilo Poet
Copyright © Subimal Sinha-Roy | Year Posted 2023
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