When you’re called to cross that wide sea
When finally, after you’ve set aside
any hope of completion,

how will you walk
your final walk
down the pier to that great ship?

Will your cadence convey the majesty
of all your days,
with pride and surrender,
to all you’ve given,
and what is yet undone?

When you’ve come to understand
that goals and dreams
are map and compass,
and you’re no longer interested
in arriving on any particular shore,
as much as
finding arrival in the crest and trough
of every wave,

will you finally hear
the whisper of water
lapping the hull,
is the subtle reminder that
this is it.
And this.
And this.

And when you surrender all your direction to the sea,
her wild winds and tides,
reef and rock,
When at last you’ve put away the scope and sextant,
content to drift toward the setting sun,

Tell me, then, do you breathe freely?
Even as you go,
can you yet take her all in,
deep into your still yearning lungs
knowing
there is nothing so full as the Nothing
to which you now return.

From the harbor they will watch you.
And some may wail and long for your return
as the farthest horizon
swallows mast, sail,
and you in the crow’s nest.

Which direction will you face upon that final wave?