Paul Gerard Reed

I Had To Go

The seas are free

Free of angry men,

Waves that roll in

And wash back again;

 

Salty home unlived in

No-ones safe abode,

But calling out to you

To leave the dusty road.

 

O, I had to go

Had to leave the dry land,

Had to leave the beaches

And their gritty sands;

 

The ocean has no cares

Only driftwood souls,

No stinging words

That burn like coals;

 

Only the roar over the pebbles

The crashing on eroded stone

The gales shrieking and a-howling

That wither skin and bone;

 

Who placed the seas on earth

These cauldrons of douse and dread?

From their boiling scalps

To their tangled beds;

 

O, I had to go

Had to leave the dry land

Had to leave the beaches

And their gritty sands.