The Aging Castaway

Purging his hope
He reads the horizon again;
Lips cracked from calling,
Hearing like surf,
Legs that have folded to
Rhythmless root.

His mind calls the body
That listens, then laughs at
The straw hat, one shoe
And bones gone to sand,
Lost in the shade
Of the leathering tree.

He rests,
Caught like some castaway,
Aging,
Locked to the spring of
The tiring clockwork sea.