In the long reaches of the night

I took this (now altered) photo 50 or so years ago. The pathway up to Cae Rhys. You can see it’s roof just by the tall pine tree. I wrote the words below on the day before the funeral as I lay awake.

In the long reaches of the night

The dull clangings of the harbour buoys
Leads me out across the ground-swell shifting sea.
Out here beyond the haven’s feeble lights
The velvet darkness reigns supreme,
Arcing up through star snow to the faintest of far horizons.
The silent seabirds part around my outbound course.
And silent close again.
Clammy salt air brines my hair
And settles on my small ship’s flaking painted steel.

In open ocean one can only wait
With vague presentiments
Of the stirring unknown deeps,
The fathomless beckoning void
Where strange creatures
Light their way in the crushing eternal black.

And scant consolation there is in knowing that dawn will unbidden break
Out on that vastness alone
In the long reaches of the night.