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As at the Far Edge of Circling

----As at the far edge of circling the country,
facing suddenly the other ocean,
the boundless edge of what I had wanted
to know, I stepped
----into my answers’ shadow ocean,

the tightening curl of the corners
of outdated old paperbacks,---breakers,
a crumble surf of tiny dry triangles around
----my ankles sinking in my stand

taken----that the horizon written
by the spin of my compass is------that this is
is not enough-----a point to turn around on,

----is like a skin---that falls short of edge
as a rug,---that covers a no longer
natural spot, no longer existent
to live on from,---the map of my person
----come to the end of,-----but not done.

-----That country crossed was what I could imagine,
and that little spit of answer is the shadow—
not the ocean which casts it—---that I step next
into----to be cleansed of question.

---But not of seeking----…it as
if simplified for the seeking,
----come to its end at this body.

-Ed Roberson, 2010