The Floating Speck

1
Our craft is ready now.
The waters take the ledge.
All on which we stand
Must melt away and all
Our longing evanesce
Like mist in the morning sun.

We must give our breath to fire,
Our thirst to brine, and sit
Like stacked stones while the blind
And blinding eye revolves
And rises through the dawn
At a place we guess in darkness.

We shall see unanchored islands
Pitching, plunging, each
Unknown to the other. One
Will have grass and sloping sands
And palm trees on the lean,
Another lichen scrolls

On the flats of granite walls.
We shall not ever stop
At them because regardless
Of our meaning, we would only
Bump against the rocks
Or be stranded upon the shore.

Our time will carry by
Like wind without a sail.
We shall have no minutes or weeks
Or years to celebrate,
Only days to float askew
Or bob up and down in a spin

And no escape but the side
Of the boat and the shoreless sea.
And we shall have days to believe
We are on the edge of a scream
Unending, infinite days,
When the sea is suddenly still. . .

2
Steaming orange and red,
The sun sets ahead.
And so the sun
Will show it's done,
And we shall walk
Among the waves --
Perhaps enfold
Ourselves
In a stopped crest
And rest.

A star descends, a star descends,
Not plunging forever through the abyss
Nor exploding rocket-like to end,
It is worn away by what surrounds it
Into just a floating speck
Of what there was, into nothing.