Gibraltar Straits

 

Great gateway to Atlantis realm, your pillars stand as sentinels

To guard the final passage to that long lost mystic land.

Beyond world’s end toward the west it lay, archaic legend tells,

Where captains feared to ever test the dread those unsailed seas did then command.

 

Mythology had Hercules your channel forge through rock and earth

To open up the sea toward horizons never seen.

By severing the known domain you gave new dynasties their birth

Where now those cultures yet remain divided by your waters in between.

 

And did Phoenician galleys ply their trade between your facing shores,

And did you watch the Roman navy sail their legions forth?

And did you bear the conquering fleet of Africa’s invading Moors

And watch as every new defeat allowed their empire venture further north.

 

And was the ceaseless ebb and flow of power ‘tween Berber rivals played

For centuries around your coasts and on your restless tide?

And have, as Barbary pirates sailed on every reckless western raid,

Your fierce Levanter winds prevailed to set the course each corsair then would ride?

 

And did, as Europe’s empires grew their realms upon the fate of wars,

You hear the cannons thunderous roar above each blood-soaked fray.

And did you watch each savage fight that raged upon your seas and shores

To see the conqueror re-write the future path of history that day?

 

And did you see the quiet man who left your shores, some years now past,

To venture where his fate would have him endlessly to roam?

And did it ever cross your mind a time for him might come at last

When he’d recall those years behind and dream that one day he could find

The means by which to turn his helm to steer toward your ancient realm,

And bear him back to where he once called home.