Still Life in Fog

At the end of the peninsula there is a jetty,
Stacked stone in a straight path to the end of the world,

a place to stand. surrounded by sea
with only the thinnest of stones behind you,

out of sight, to return. There was a time
when such vastness, such emptiness

would have swallowed you. You would have felt lost,
too small for words. Your need to matter to strong

to stand the humbling of such a place,
nervous with a touch of vertigo.

I do not know what happened. Perhaps the precipice
of a life near the end, more than once,

living in dark places where you could see no horizons,
a life of blind man’s bluff. I do not know.

But something happened, and now the further
in the middle of nowhere you stand,

the more sure of yourself you are. A still life
in the morning fog, seeing light where too often,

there is none.