Just before the daylight
There appears a craft that’s drifting
On the waters so indifferent
To the rights and wrongs of sailing
Towards a goal that’s ever shifting
Sometimes down
Sometimes above

And grievous was the sailor
Who had lost his true direction
And gazed into the calm
To realize his own reflection
Was the last face he’d remember
Til he dreamed of all the others
That he’d loved

And the winds reach out to move him
But his sails are furled in waiting
For the sun to overtake him
And his thirst to be abated
By the dream

But in the dream he’s striving
To become the name intended
To control the drives that turn him
With so many contraventions
Towards a principle defended
And a life that’s full and mended
In the end

So he wakes to mirrors broken
And he cuts away the anchor
To remove the hidden weighin’ on his fate
To remove the hidden weighin’ on his fate

[break]

There’s still another shore
That must be touched before the sailor
Can put away his riggings
To become the simple landsman
That he knows all aging sailors
Must become
Must become

So when the seas call out to greet him
He stands fast to the rudder
And he smiles in all his thinking
Of all the other thinking
That he’s done

Early in the morning
Just this side of the horizon
Comes a man who’s gently laughing
At the choices laid before him
By the Lords of the deep harbor
Who insist on perfect landings
And imperfect introspection

Now the waves tear into breakers
And he rides the crest with passion
Knowing that it’s best not knowing
If there’s safety in the channel
And that as he so determines
He will crash unbound by lashing
And be thrown onto the rocks
Or be swallowed by the ocean
Or land safe

I wrote this one for my friend Dana, who was having some difficult times. The words and music are supposed to evoke Leonard Cohen, one of Dana's favorites. Can be heard at Best Cellar