The Emigrant's Wake

Mists once dressed these dunes
 Like silk upon her skin
 But the ocean's bare today
 And the tide is coming in
 I watch a castle on the beach
 A tower crumbling away
 Mother Nature always wins
 The games we children play
 Rocks peek out from the foam
 There seven seagulls stand
 I slip the sandals off my feet
 And drop them on the sand
 As I walk dust clings and falls
 To my dry and weary soles
 The prints I leave upon the ground
 Like word's upon a scroll
 Walk into the waves
 As the footprints fade away
 Oceans leave no graves
 All our legacies decay
 The water's cold at dusk
 I thought as I stepped into the tide
 The sea does not want me here
 What could she have to hide?
 Our forebears looked to the horizon
 But I called into the distance
 And no deities would respond
 Walk into the waves
 As the footprints fade away
 Oceans leave no graves
 All our legacies decay
 Perhaps if I tread further
 Past where my feet engraved
 My last mark upon the world
 I'd find a face within the waves