THE SHIP OF MEMORY

Copyright © 1998 Van Wood

 

There’s a ship of which I’m the Captain and I often sail far and wide.

But, unlike other ships, I need not depend on the wind or the sea or the tide.

I sail on the Ship of Memory and return to the days of the past,

where again I see how it used to be on the shores that I once passed.

 

Sometimes, I see myself as a child, too busy at play to believe

That someday the Ship of Time would come and I would have to leave.

To never return – or could I?  Could it ever possibly be? 

That I could return to the Land of my youth on the Ship of memory.

 

Oh yes, the familiar faces that I knew yesterday. 

Sometimes we meet; sometimes we greet.  But never can we stay.

You see, this ship must keep sailing…never long the anchor is cast.

So, on we sail, as we stand by the rail and visit again the past.

 

Sometimes, the seas are stormy.  Even now I seem to recall

That some of the days I have known before had never seen calm at all.

But always there was a harbor which seemed to be so near,

And there I was safe in a sheltered place as I safely anchored there.

 

Nowadays…I sometimes take others with me - often much younger that I

And we sail away to yesterday to explore the open sky…

that is filled with a million visions of the way it used to be;

On another day far, far, away…on the Ship of Memory.

 

And now my friends, I must leave you for I hear that distant bell

That seems to call to one and all…to where?  I cannot tell.

You see, you must captain your own ship and that’s the way it must be,

As we sail away to yesterday on the Ship of Memory.