In the last days they will say to him
    stretching out their hands as if to grab the whole
    of the world,
        saying,

“Did we not speak of this to you?
    You stand alone, and when we turn to leave -
    you will die without even a twitch
        from the nose of God.
    The world moves on, moves on - old man.
    No place remains in the halls of memory
    for you. The world is quick and swift
            to judgement, merciless in her damnation;
    where shall you go - all has gone before you
    for naught…”

but he will hear no more than a few scattered
words of their speech, nor will he pay heed to
their presence.

Sitting on his perch on the edge of the world,
in the last throne room of the last stronghold where
    the earth still ends in a shower of
    mist and foam and power into a
    dark unknown,
watching the fangs of unnamed leviathans
    gnawing at the surface of the deep -
he will rise up and set sail from the brink,
    perhaps allowing himself a glance backward
    at a world gone strange,
and, catching the last gust of the North Wind,
allow the abyss to swallow the tail of that impossible
world.
    Sail - for a year or a day
    and find a place fit to sit and think.