Horizon

The sun spills light over the craggy coastline
travelling up the wind-swept tundra,
illuminating coarse reds and granite greys
trailing above dense forests of bone,
weaving through an intricate
maze of ribs and skulls.

Beyond the landscape lies the great Atlantic Ocean.
It is wild, endless and deep. It hunts
in the harbour where trawlers sit huddled
together like hostages. Above clouds curl and darken.

Long-ago explorers carved vessels out of wood
setting out on voyages surrounded by storms
while those left on land gathered sticks,
telling tales around fires of brave mariners
who drifted off for days in search of land
and of souls lost somewhere in the deep.

The land still bears scars of missing
men, the starving sea tears out the
hearts of villagers, turns widows into pillars,
cuts grooves out there in that bleak horizon.