Scott Edward Schroen

July 3, 1951 - October 12, 2011

I am standing by the seashore. 

A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze 

and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength,

and I stand and watch 

until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud 

just where the sun and sky come down to mingle with each other. 

Then someone at my side says, “There she goes!” 

Gone where? Gone from my sight - that is all. 

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar 

as she was when she left my side 

and just as able to bear her load of living freight 

to the places of destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. 

And just at the moment when someone at my side says,

“There she goes!”,

there are other eyes watching her coming, 

and other voices ready to take up the glad shout :

“Here she comes!” 

- and that is dying.

A horizon and just the limit of our sight.