Land’s end

When you feel like you’ve run out of road with no map to guide you. A poem.

Have you ever thought about giving up after running with no direction, getting to the destined place too late to matter, where you watch the lost goal sailing away, feeling powerless at the end of what you dreamed for? I think this poem might be about that. As I revised it, it seemed like the poem wanted to be structured into couplets. I hope you can identify with it.

I wanted to map a path to your place,
but the land was boundless, shifting.

My dreams were scattered seeds along the way.
Brown birds picked at them in cropless winter fields.

They flew into bare trees.
The brown leaves dried and dropped.

The frost filled clouds
flashed by like ironic smiles.

At land’s end, I faced the impossible ocean
like the Irish king who marched into the foam.

He cursed fate, hurled his silly sword
at the unforgiving breakers.

Cold and wasted, I slipped on moss draped rocks,
came to an open shanty door on rusted hinges

where I watched a boat slice the waves
carrying you beyond the horizon.