panic at the thought Of never getting there

These nights of pinks and purples vanishing, of freakish heat
That strokes our skin until we fall asleep and stray to places
We hoped would always be beyond our reach--the deeps
Where nothing flourishes, where everything that happens seems
To be for keeps. We sweat, and plead to be released
Into the coming day on time, and panic at the thought
Of never getting there and being forced to drift forgotten
On a midnight sea where every thousand years a ship is sighted, or a swan,
Or a drowned swimmer whose imagination has outlived his fate, and who swims
To prove, to no one in particular, how false his life had been.

[Mark Strand {1934-2014} 'III' in "Morning, Noon, and Night" from Blizzard of One]