As Far As You Can Go On Foot

AS FAR AS YOU CAN GO ON FOOT At journey’s end you find a barren shore. By staff, seven hundred miles and more – and here’s no living trace, no monument. No legendary table, eight chairs meant to quell a family squabble. Those who swore to peace are gone – to graves, if not to war. What words of peace withstand the ocean’s bore? The sea racks up on rock, its tidings spent. At journey’s end you fill your pockets – what, with shells? a store of spiraled hope some living creature wore. It’s dead – the sea-snail, not the hope. Content to stand and gaze beyond man’s failed intent – what might you make now of a rope, an oar at journey’s end?