for Peter Steele
The very smell of the sea beckons –
pungent, redolent of other shores.
I walk the beach with my forebears.
They set off and I returned,
We have found one another out.
The lighthouse at Fenit
looks in all directions at once:
comings and goings its only concern.
This is a place of stone.
This is where the long view obtains.
Limestone conglomerate
holds it all together.
Beyond the farthest reach of this ocean,
someone dear is fading fast away.
He may be gone as I say these words.
His faith is that he has always been the life
that is leaving him, leaving us.
The sea beckons. The lighthouse is dark.
Clouds obscure the high hills, the wind is steady.
This is where we find ourselves.