Alone above the waves
Stood up on a turbine
Wind’s not whipping away
The feeling anymore
A prickling at the outposts
To leave the frontier towns
Flee a research station
Tear all shelter down
I can’t feel belonging, now
A rock face, a steel strut
A tube pump meltwater up
The instinct has wilted
And coughs in the generator
So back to the land
Seed drill spat back out
No duty to withstand it
A head torch, a water tower
A stockpile, asleep an hour
Body wakes up wanting
Long after the will’s flickered out
Down on the rungs that slip under
The licking of a lilting tide
Lately the sea has gone gentle
Free from the need to signify
Caught in the shadow of a blade, briefly
Then in the sun again
Much like a life is played
Through lightness and through pain
Through instance and the longer story
Through freedom and through blame
Through impulse and through preparation
Much like a life is played
Happy to drift away
Warm is the push of the North Atlantic
Into the unmarked day
Ready to stop the longer story