The End of the Year

I find myself
alone, drifting slowly
like an Inuit
on an ice flow
away from 
familiar pin-prick lights,
curling chimney smoke,
home fires
I might not
see again.
The unknown flows like an ocean.
I ask,
Do you know?
But the stars won't speak.
There will be a time
for this and that
a time to take action
a time to swim
to a distant shore.
There will be a time.
But this isn't it.