The Emigrant's Wake

Mists once dressed these dunes
Like silk upon her skin
But the ocean's bare today
And the tide is coming in
I watch a castle on the beach
A tower crumbling away
Mother Nature always wins
The games we children play

Rocks peek out from the foam
There seven seagulls stand
I slip the sandals off my feet
And drop them on the sand
As I walk dust clings and falls
To my dry and weary soles
The prints I leave upon the ground
Like word's upon a scroll

Walk into the waves
As the footprints fade away
Oceans leave no graves
All our legacies decay

The water's cold at dusk
I thought as I stepped into the tide
The sea does not want me here
What could she have to hide?
Our forebears looked to the horizon
But I called into the distance
And no deities would respond

Walk into the waves
As the footprints fade away
Oceans leave no graves
All our legacies decay

Perhaps if I tread further
Past where my feet engraved
My last mark upon the world
I'd find a face within the waves