Toward the Horizon

It would be easy now
to remain here.

The harbor is calm.
The fires burn low.
One could grow accustomed
to these evenings
of quiet talk and familiar streets.

But the sea still calls.

Not loudly.
Not as it did when we were young.
Then it was thunder and wind
and the reckless certainty
that the world existed
only to be discovered.

Now the call is different.

It comes like memory—
persistent, patient.

I have traveled widely.
Cities welcomed me and forgot me.
The fields, the markets, the long coasts—
I carry pieces of them still.

And they carry something of me.

Those who once walked beside me
have chosen other roads.
I do not blame them.

Each life finds its own harbor.

But I cannot remain.

The horizon withdraws
each time I approach it.
And perhaps that is the point.

So tonight I turn again
toward the open water.

The twilight deepens.
The first stars appear.

The ship strains quietly at its ropes
as though it understands.

Come, old heart.

We are not what we once were.
No one expects that now.

But there is still
a little fire in us.

Enough, perhaps,
for one more voyage

toward those lands
that no map records

and that we have always known
we must seek.