I suppose I might have known
\nAt the start: on the day I took her helm.
\nI could feel it in her timbers
\nWritten deep in every board and beam.<\/p>\n
Every ship is a shipwreck waiting to happen.<\/p>\n
It was easy to forget
\nAs she sprinted down the slipway.
\nSerene amidst the crash and wave and spray
\nAs one born to the water.<\/p>\n
But even then it was true:
\nEvery ship is a shipwreck waiting to happen.<\/p>\n
Every ship is a shipwreck waiting to happen:
\nWhether cast upon a foreign shore
\nOr sunken, out of sight beneath the waves
\nOr secretly, shamefully stripped in a wrecker’s yard.<\/p>\n
Every ship is a shipwreck waiting to happen.<\/p>\n
Oh and we had our times.
\nWhen the sea was up
\nAnd every wave ploughed over:
\na victory.<\/p>\n
Or when the calm of ages descended
\nAnd there came upon us
\nThat eternal silence
\nOf the deep.<\/p>\n
Days of bright sunlight
\nAnd dark tempest
\nHard going
\nAnd easy breeze.<\/p>\n
We scarcely thought about it then, but:
\nEvery ship is a shipwreck waiting to happen.<\/p>\n
Every ship is a shipwreck waiting to happen:
\nAnd even unsinkable ships sink.
\nIt is written in their timbers:
\nIn every board and beam.<\/p>\n
And so she lies:
\nMasts broken,
\nRigging ragged, torn and tangled,
\nHull splintered.<\/p>\n
They urge me to move on:
\nTo newer, bigger, better craft.
\nShe had her time – good time:
\nNow others take her place.<\/p>\n
But my eyes, through tears, are filled with:
\nMasts broken,
\nRigging ragged,
\nHull splintered.<\/p>\n
I see her form upon the shore
\nWhere all ships, in their time, are dashed.
\nBut, now, amongst the carnage
\nOne other wreck takes my eye.<\/p>\n
One wreck, in whose beams the word is: life!
\nOne wreck whose every wound is victory
\nOne wreck at once past, present, future
\nOne wreck which rises on the tide…<\/p>\n
And so, I have a hope.
\nA dream.
\nA promise.
\nA light.<\/p>\n
Every ship is a shipwreck waiting to happen:
\nBut I wait for another age
\nWhen this ship will be made anew
\nAnd the word in every board and beam is life.<\/p>\n