Beyond the Edge of the World

Poem by Betsi Ashton republished here in loving memory

She had dared to dream
Of a world where hate
And nationalism were barred.
Where the countries of Earth
Were linked as states,
And minds were no longer scarred.

She had searched through
The cloudless skies, at night
Beyond the edge of the world,
And her mind leaped out
In a boundless flight,
To mingle where stars are hurled.

Through most of her days
Of toil and work,
But half of her mind was engaged;
The other half flew with a Spock or a Kirk,
And her thoughts could not be caged.

She carried an IDIC within her heart,​
And tried to live by its rules;
Caring not when her friends​
tried to tear the chart -​
(Blind, with the blindness of fools.)

The life she led in her dreams
was the sane,
The ‘every day’ was the sham:
Rolling-up time in her hands
in a skein;
knowing ‘I shall’ for ‘I am’.

On the edge of the world
They sought her out,
Transporting her to Their year;
Because she kept the faith
in a world of doubt,
and knew that tomorrow was near.

Published in October 1979 by Betsi Ashton
in The Stargazer (a poetry anthology)
Publisher: Enigma Enterprises.