Ode upon Salvation

Wading through flood waters
Fighting against the ebb tide
I’m struggling to find his side
In the shadows of what went before

A point of light on the horizon
Or just a shimmer on the sea
I will know whether it will be
The tide goes out and leaves the light

You may not believe it at all
Or you may not like it one bit
It really doesn’t matter a whit
Cos you surely can’t mess with fate

There’s a lamp on the beach
A light for thieves and lovers
It shines invisible to all others
But I always knew that it was there

People could say that I stole
Or I don’t know what’s right
But I think black can be white
When you’re drowning in the dark

The prince within the pauper
He was trying to end a game
After too long never the same
But the boat sank as he sailed away

I walked that shore every day
Willing that ocean to take me
I sought to fall in that dark sea
Holding only sky and sand in my hand

The sea god has a hard heart
For his life is bare and lonely
He pleases but he himself only
And perhaps he saw it reflected in me

So as I walked so I was saved
I looked out and saw the shine
I finally fell in that sea of mine
And I jumped and I swam and I fought

I didn’t know if I’d find a light
Or just a mirage on dark water
I did know another’s daughter
Would alight acid flames all round me

The fire boiled my watery path
Scalded my skin, burned the sea
Ocean rising as mist beside me
I swam a firestorm on water in the dark

The ship is foundering slowly
The timbers are splitting apart
An artist will try to save his art
But that trip itself will not save him

And so he watches the water
As it rises to above his ankles
It flows into a cage of shackles
Until the captive beast begins to rage

He couldn’t see his own light
Brightly though it should glow
For it’s on love that it will grow
He is a person who lights up the world

But I saw that struggling flame
Faint and stifled as it did seem
From the beach I saw the gleam
Didn’t know if it was real or just my folly

But I believed so deeply inside
Don’t know what or how or why
But somehow I had faith to try
And the belief in my heart got me through

I couldn’t pull him from the sea
For he was never mine to rescue
It didn’t matter what I could do
Realised it wasn’t my fate to open his eyes

So I left him and headed for land
Had to sit and watch him drown
I had come to a desperate town
But the wisdom of despair had no comfort

So I sat on the shore wasting away
My eyes locked on that tiny speck
Trying to hold the anguish in check
Feeding the fire of belief with bits of my soul

I died on the beach and he died at sea
A broken soul couldn’t save the prince
But that fire made the vital difference
For it welded the broken pieces of who I was

He had to drown before he saw
Had to shed what had no worth
The cold water was his rebirth
Don’t save him but make him save himself

No man can hold back the tide
It will always recede eventually
Just as the sun will rise ritually
Ancient wrecks rise from the sea into light

And so the dark waves fall back
Showing secrets from the seabed
The lost arise and move on ahead
The light that was a shimmer is burning anew

Rising from the tide as a dream
But he is more real than before
He is not drowning any more
He picks up my spirit and carries me home

I thank the gods I believed enough
I thank them all that I lived through
That hardest thing I ever had to do
I survived and now my angel has come to me

My angel came silently in the dark
My salvation, my blue eyed angel
He crossed the line and defied hell
He came back from the dead and he saved my life