A Wavering Horizon

The horizon wavers.
The world's bearings waver.
The land, the house, the boat
ripple as if they had lost their places.
In their midst
a person stands, leaning on a staff.
It is not that he does not waver.
The staff tells us that.
He leans on it because he wavers.
But even as he wavers,
he does not forget
where to look.

He does not follow the departing boat.
Eyes that follow what has left
collapse toward the past.
He looks
beyond where the boat must go,
toward an empty horizon
that nothing has yet reached.
The horizon is not an end.
It is where the visible world
and the world yet to come
touch.
To exist
is not to stand on firm bearings.
Even when those bearings waver,
it is to set one's gaze
not toward what has passed,
but toward what is to come.
Today, too,
he looks toward what has not arrived.
That looking
keeps him standing.