The Mariner

Moored to crumbling dock, besieged isle ablaze

A backdrop dim of ember and ash

on thoroughly ransacked village

Knuckles cracked to bone, fingers wrapped like cord

Round desperate blade that chews away

to escape this hoary pillage

Rooftops and rafters still so brightly lit

Through glass I spied on the horizon

a shore amidst a sea of isles

That land afar a sanctuary seemed

Stellar body taken earthly form

beheld as a western sunrise

Near instantaneously beckoning

Though it may be of imagining

milk and honey and fertile soil

Intrigued did I inquire upon that land

Before the dark days were fully set

and visions outran me by miles

Story besetting woe, yet I could hear

A somber chord of light is woven

that even more enticed to me

Now at the tether to which I am bound

I strike away at its bundles to

free this vessel upon the sea

If blessed were I to settle on that land

If even graced to glean from her fields

or perchance drink from those waters

That land afar off and across the world

Land I could not hope to draw to me

through a winsome word or barter

But rather wouldst, seeking to claim that land,

Not for possession, but to cherish

and cultivate her existence,

Face uncharted water on untried craft

These eyes behold that glorious land

and set these hands to noble task

Though being undeserving of that chance

Giving nothing more to circumstance

but my every breath for just a glance

Or some unknown turn of happenstance

I'd turn my bow into the expanse

If I found home within that land