my dear friend, I am flying blind,
sailing in the dark:
no shape of land or sense of tide,
no familiar day mark.
I've been losing my horizon --
which way is Up, which way is North?
I am steering by the loom of
your honour and your worth.
I'm weary of the long cold watch
in spray and noise and night,
of not knowing what I'm doing here
or whether it is right.
I look to you with anxious eyes:
one steady, honest light.
in the dark my charts are useless.
I am sailing on belief,
in the failure of dead reckoning,
in the presence of the reef;
in tense unhappy ignorance
of position, course, and speed,
uncertain of my soundings:
disaster guaranteed.
but then I see the beacon,
the range lights, the sweep
of the sturdy lighthouse,
the promise that it keeps:
I can line up with the channel,
I can anchor safe and sleep.
black water and gray distance
bewilder me no more:
now I have my bearings,
I am closing with the shore.
the beacon of your kindness
is all that marks this coast.
I am a stranger here and weary;
without you I am lost.
-- GPL Aug 2005 D. A. Clarke