let this not end, I thought to myself
as the children yawned
and the conversation died
and I thought of the moon
shining only because of reflected sunlight
otherwise it is a dark, lifeless place

Fled out into the darkness and the mist
of the ocean air and the songs
and the memories and the years gone by
cacophonous
the voice my hopeless madness
the vomitus of my mind

And I remembered that I had scoured
the cold, sullen, snow-filled Northern Wastes
and it was not there
and tracked the great burning, wind-scoured Western Deserts
and I could not find it
and trod up and down the grimed and mired streets
of that vast City upon the Two Rivers in the East
and still it eluded me

So I am here again in this Southland by the mesmerizing Sea
as it was in the beginning
tying a knot in the silver thread that runs through everything
and its seeming endlessness sometimes feels like a curse
and like a man on the wrong ship
or the wrong train
I watch the destiny that was not meant to be
glide out to the sunset
leaving me with only what might-have-beens