4 WINDS TO 7 SEAS

 Peace

The noise of raging wind, unfettered,

Whips through ragged air,

Blows untamed waves of crashing sea,

Obscures the urgent cries of growing fear

Inside the boat, tossed and 

Thrown and all seems lost,

“Wake up,” they cry. “Wake up.”

And here he lies still sleeping,

In swirling stinging salted air,

Peace is found.

Before the stillness he would bring,

Before the commanded calm,

He knows already this place of peace in which he rests,

He knows the end from the beginning,

Knows the hands of grace,

Knows even in the storm

This peace that passes knowing

And from the place of peace he speaks 

Be still.

See, another time, another man come running,

Broken, tired, alone and spent,

The fire gone, gone,

Just crippling fear and failure now,

Cowering, assaulted by the brutal storm of wind and fire and fury,

Commanded and unyielding,

Who knows no peace, until,

At last, he hears the quiet whisper,

Interested and alive in him,

The whisper of the end from the beginning,

The story bigger than just him,

Until he sees his place in Him,

And stills. 

And sometimes I am there,

Caught in the crashing storm that threatens any moment

To breach, unfettered ragged me.

That whirls within, without, and cries in growing fear.

There, may I learn to see him there,

Through salt stung eyes,

To see the end from the beginning,

To know the place of peace within the storm,

Beyond the measure of my knowing.

And when my world has folded in,

Spent, alone, the fire gone,

Cowering numb,

Whisper to me here again,

Interested and alive in me,

Whisper of the end from the beginning,

Of the hands of grace that hold me still,

Of the story that is bigger than just me.

Show me that my untamed fear, and desperate hope,

The storms that rage within, without

My restlessness, my loss,

All find their place in you.

Richard Pyke