Lucerne (1886)

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The darkness hides it

But on nights like this

The hand of every lost sailor

Reaches out of the water

And grasps our wooden hulls

That sail so buoyantly

On nights brimming with stars.

Tonight, the moon, a devil-slit eye

Pierces the black with a ghostly glare.

Three masts like crosses

Leadened with snow

Materialize amidst a gathering storm

Then evanesce like the three souls below

Who after lanced by ice water

Thrown like spears are then 

Baptized with fear and despair  

And soon rinsed from the living.

Loneliness works this way;

Heaving against our boulder-strewn shores

Ripping and shearing our rocky facades

Shaking the ledge we’ve rooted to

When the swells thunder down around us

The water surges into our cracks

Freeze, and shatter us from the inside.

Take to the sea as I

And you shall never be lonely

For the longing whisper 

Of what was left behind

Whorls at your ear always

And exults when the vessel 

You attempted to escape the world in

Finally slips beneath the surface.