In my childhood the beacons blazed,
Bright and reassuring,
On my imagined distant hills
And brought me always safely home.
But as I grew I doused the flames when roving out
And thought myself a new Magellan.
But soon the stars to steer by
Were draped in mourning velvet.
The charts that guided other centuries
Had been discarded long since.
Forty years becalmed on some unbounded ocean
Has been the penance for my wilfulness
But still no certain sign of shore is seen.
Instead I drift upon a creeping current
Towards some eternal Sargasso Sea.
Even love itself is variegated I have been told
And if that is so indeed I long for nothingness.