In Prospero's Wake. Poem by Bryan Sefton

How far would you take me?
How far in this unnatural way?
Held aloft by unseen strings
Even the bird must flap its wings
Or fixed on the Earth must stay?

I take you in Ariel's fashion
We go as far as fate
Your journey was primed
When time first chimed
The first still resonates

Is there no limit?
Though we go at the speed of light?
Both night and day
Seem to flicker away
And become confused to the sight?

The limit is set in your head
For limits a self made lie
Dimensions are infinite
Mind is an open state
A bird that must feed or fly

Do we have to travel this path?
I fear for my very life
These shadows beyond dreaming
Are hell made and seeming
To carry the threat of the knife

They are, as are we, at a point
A point in their forward progress
A million years away
We stood as they today
And still ever onward press

But where is the end of it?
This never ending climb?
The millions of years
Of blood sweat and tears
Knowing there's no end to time?

There are no horizons in space
I show you only so far
God, in his fashion,
Gave curiosity a passion
Then beckoned in a distant star

May we not ignore it?
Simply turn our heads aside?
Must our nature be linked
Like the fate of the Sphinx
To a destiny fixed as the tides?

Tides change the contours of countries
They are the eaters of land
Sand is the dust
Of a mountain that's just
Reduced so it runs through the hand

So I am fixed to your flight?
And we fly to the outermost star?
I have viewed all your scenes
To be truthful it seems
We are better off back where we are

You have hated the path we have travelled
And shuddered at all we did view
My poor simple friend
From beginning to end
We have travelled the path that is you!