the old man and the fire

Sit down. History doesn’t shout. It waits.  

 I never sailed a northern gale 

Never stood where masts would fail 

But I have traced with careful hand 

The ghosts of men and vanished land  

In margins thin and footnotes small 

In brittle ink that starts to fall 

Maps are ink and ink will fade 

But silence leaves a sharper blade    

You think the past is closed and sealed 

Locked in pages, signed and filed 

But dig beneath what’s neatly told 

And watch the older truth unfold   

So sit with me by the firelight 

Where the paper turns to flame 

There’s more in the ash of history 

Than ever was written in name  

Oh the sea keeps more than treasure 

It keeps what men forgot 

And the charts they drew so careful 

Left out more than they thought  

I walked the stones of Ferryland 

Cold Atlantic in the sand 

Unearthed the bones of timbered years 

Salt and soil and buried fears  

Not every voyage ends at sea 

Some drift through time quietly 

A captain’s path, a scholar’s thread 

Two horizons rarely wed

They teach you dates and measured miles 

They polish truth in tidy files 

But history breathes between the lines 

In fractured clocks and broken signs  

So sit with me by the firelight 

Let the quiet embers glow 

There’s more in the space between pages 

Than most men care to know  

Oh the sea keeps more than treasure 

It keeps what men forgot 

And the charts they drew so careful 

Left out more than they thought 

I study maps like other men pray 

Searching what they gave away 

A question carved in wood and bone 

What did he see and what was shown  

Was it the ice, the stars, the claim 

Or something none would dare to name 

So sit with me by the firelight 

Hear the wind against the stone 

There’s more in the roots of the old world 

Than ever was carved in throne  

Oh the sea keeps more than treasure 

It keeps what men forgot 

And the fire burns for those who ask 

What the world says it is not  

The past is patient. Are you?