At the Ocean's End

I didn’t come to think, he thought,

nor to reason, only to remember, remember

where I came from and the schooner under full-sail

or stalled without the winds a-blowin’ that brought me

here to the ocean’s end, the ocean’s edge

and the rocky shore I have called home;

for here, now, the memories surge

like the tides, swelling and receding, drawn

by the moon’s pull, in and out and back again,

leaving behind it teeming pools of life,

gleaming and clear in the morning mist, reflecting;

and the fog lifting reveals among the rocks

at the ocean’s end what I came for,

to remember myself and the sea.