A Headlong Stretch: i. Up Ahead

Passage assured
on the good ship Goodbye
dare I raise up my eyes
to stare into the rigging?
(Preparing to go/come home..)

All we could have done
we're at pains to explain
but all our might in the main
is only empty promise
unfulfilled at last
still no-one can be blamed
for breaking daily bread,
thinking ahead.

Blessed with strange grace
and reluctant to face
ineluctable fate,
I say I saw the future
I said forget the past
but I'll not hear the last
of lives I've never led,
thinking ahead.