A horizon too far to reach

     from the sands of a barren beach.

‘Twas there he came to me.

 
I held him up to show the world,

     my child of sea and light, becurled –

A father’s legacy.

He grew, my child of sea and light,

     and from the shore, he cast his sight

‘Cross waves of dreams unborn.

Those days of man and son were mine,

     and far above the waterline,

A sky too clear to warn

That its horizon beckoned him

     toward earth’s edge, the very rim,

And so, he sailed away

To circumnavigate my soul,

     its darkest depth and clearest shoal,

And back to beached dismay. 

A thousand suns have sank since then,

     and still my son’s not come again,

Though hope is still afloat.

Horizons now, a haunted haze,

     where ghosts of ships out sail their days,

 And there, his little boat. 

His leaking hull and ragged sail  

     have run before November’s gale

 And sank to depths unknown.

His curls awash in silent sleep,

     his spirit comes from fathoms deep.

Horizons, now his own.