On varnished sea
I will rest here
Happily
And watch the world
In faithful turn
End the day
Resplendently
Ten thousand more
When what’s now green
Was naught but fields of ice
Or so the legends say
Antarktica
Where all tribes came
Hard to see
In my mind
The numbers
Of the past
What once were billions
Flight reduced
To millions
In the exodus
From the desert sand
Earth had become
To this plot
Of icy rock
No matter the time
The journey intends to take
Some things will I remember
Some will I forget
Which? I leave to discover
Upon this travel’s end
Though the intensity
Brings initial pain
Vision soon resolves
Restoring clarity
Even under leaden sky
There is some magic yet
When lone gull wings
On rippling breeze
Grace in its poise
Careless of thought
Satisfied in arc
And swoop of flight
Which lifts me too
From baleful earth
Between the greys
Of clouds and sea
Sun ring complementing
The line of her departure
In retreat she makes
Some small rippling wake
Much like the sun
As it dips below horizon
The world left behind
Settles into darkness
Isolated
No ferry stops
No bridge to cross
Too cold to swim
So stranded here
In my beliefs
While rowboats rock
Tied up to dock
It’s lingered there
As long as I remember
While the horizon calls to me
But there
The resort so close
I nearly feel the warmth
Of the golden window light
The frontage seems
To brace against the weather
Like I sometimes do in a storm
Arms outstretched
Head on into the rippling wind