Traveller

Today’s arrival
at the next
cold shore
finds low coals,
seal bones,
a silver brooch
half buried
in the sand.
And as always
the same scrawled
note found
daggered to a tree.

Island to island
west and north
the search, each
new launch
on darker swells,
unravelling
in Arctic gale.

Whenever I
turn a page
I scan into
those marges,
seeking out
bruised regions
where belief
and desire
are bound,

compassed by
that crashing surf
which beckons
in each recede
a deep salt croon:

not here
not here
not here