Tomorrow I Will Walk

Tomorrow I will walk the high cliffs of memory
Looking to the green, and sea, and silence;
I will understand the present flight of seagulls
And plight of fishermen as each broken wave recedes.

I will draw again the line that will be drawn
By giants and the course of time we fear,
Dividing earth and water in the mind that breeds:
A season of mist that will have gone before.

I will say that language-time is our great nemesis
But that I do not know what I believe
Or what perceive without it. Future is a place
We sense of setting suns and before-dawns –

I will call this place horizon. I will follow
This future, as it whispers in crystal blues,
And swells, and rolls, and climbs, and falls
At my thousand feet below, and returns again to blue.

Tomorrow I will pause on the high cliffs of memory –
The sea on my left, the land on my right –
And I will turn to face the line I have drawn:
I will submit myself to fall, commit myself to the waves.

The descent from memory will lead me to the present:
This day of breaking that will be tomorrow,
The shattered sea on a shore that is now:
The sand felt between toes, I will stand on tomorrow.

I will stand on this stretch of solid, this sand of felt time,
And fix my eyes on horizon, and wait –
Where blue meets blue to see the line broken
By the first sight of a prow and sails, and waving hands.   

I will strain my ears for the distant voices hailing
Of men and women not yet near the shore:
Whose eyes will search for me and mine
On the far-off cliffs, the high cliffs of memory.
 
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