When love was young and bore an immigrant
Soul, how fresh and adventurous the years
And brinkmanship, my rite, was took for grant,
Aye, in my flotsam and jetsam, I spent no tears
Which by and by a greedy sea of beginnings
Has left no bounty, but cargo delivered or turned
To wood adrift, which built but useless things,
Children love tossing in fires bonny burned.
Here I lie, on the waters edge, searching—
For something to contain my emptiness,
My wanderlust, but like shy waves lurching,
I wrestle now, toward land, not loneliness.
Though I spent my life as a flag unfurled,
A disembodied soul is without this world.