Horizons

Horizons we see but cannot meet,

Arrive where they were they aren’t at your feet.

Horizons so far, so distant, so grand,

We never quite meet one, try as hard as we can,

Run ever so fast, climb ever so high,

Horizons tease onward, where mountain meets sky.

The horizon I speak of, of course, is the one

Where geographic forms collide with the sun,

When the day star slips behind mineral and bark,

Its swift run, won, and leaves us in dark.

But another horizon exists and calls,

Where the laborious wave decidedly falls,

On the water-worn land of a battered old beach,

Where quartz and univalves mutually bleach.

The man who wanders there is pleased to have found,

An horizon he conquers; where sea meets the ground.

Where the Main laps or lunges at his feet in the sand,

And challenges ever the presence of land.

The horizon here found is attainable, close;

Not an illusion – a tangible coast.

A goal that is reached, a boundary that’s set;

This dry solid earth, this mysterious wet.

And man’s spirit here feels so light and so free,

At the very boundary, The boundary of earth and sea.

           –eab, 6/76

Written with chalk on the blackboard in my office at Christ Church, College, and Academy – a favorite of mine.