Not-a-haiku (5-5-9)

You can’t understand
The prospect of land
When you’ve been all at sea for so long.

I could lend a hand
With projects you planned
If, one day, your life-raft reaches me.

As time you have spanned
Made your body so tanned
And, you, a stranger in your outlook.

And when you are scanned
In constant demand
Will you still be the same as you were?

Or will you just fade
In the leafy glade
Where all the branch-falls end as worm-food

When all is said, done;
Is victory won;
Or is just participation all?

—-

Five, five, nine your syllables, with nineteen lines, this being the last one of them.