Always missing, never grasping,
hope amid this shifting sea,
coast and haven seem remote now,
too far off to harbour me.
Yet those fishermen are telling
news that I can't comprehend,
news that Jesus is still living,
hasn't met his final end.
But I saw his body hanging
silhouetted like a sail,
blood was draining, rigor rising,
movement quietened, life gone pale.
Now they say that sail is filling,
spirit billows drive him on,
Christ is cresting all disaster,
life returns and death is gone.
Yet unless I see the bow wave,
feel the tiller in my hand,
sense the tautness of the lanyard,
I can hardly understand.
Source of wind and wave, my sailor,
give me faith to grasp this news,
you are living, death defying,
heaven, earth and joy will fuse.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd
Metre: 8 7 8 7 D
Tune: LEWIS FOLK MELODY
Watercolour from Words, Images and Imagination © Andrew Pratt
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