An Insular Life

A calm

Then the roaring wall of the eye

As we sailed to the world

From an insular life

From the boughs that had sheltered us all of our lives

From the sun's red blooming

With a shadow on every life

As we laid in the dark

Through the thundering nights

And awoke to an ocean of shimmering white

Where the hull scrapes on the silent ice

And the gulls on the frozen ropes

Oh lights on the floor

Let the audience rise

Let them file through the halls

Still assured in their lives

Until the sky shudders open

Impossibly wide

And the room glows in the sudden light

And they are gone

They are gone for life