Sailor with a Broken Wheel

by Kray Van Kirk

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NOTES: I remember finishing the last lines of this song around midnight in a Denny's on south I-5, headed for Corvallis, Oregon to play a folk festival, a long time ago. I just needed it to be finished! Apparently, this has gotten the most digital airplay of any of my songs so far, probably because of Sam MacNeil's fine mandolin playing.

Drop-D tuning, 12-string

He's going round again, sailor with a broken wheel
All his roads lead to Rome, put him on an even keel
Down, down-a, down-a, down, down

He is a shipwright, he is a builder
He is a master who can dance upon the waves
He knows the places where a thousand ships do lie
Shattered on the sunken rocks, there to fall and die
He knows the places where a legion spirits swim
Down among their sunken halls, through water dark and grim

And with a timely hand, he sets the stars aright
And lays their courses down upon a winding chain
And through the shoals of time it's by their light he steers
Careful not to ground upon the rocks of all his years
Touching lightly then away the mirror of his eyes
Written there the consequences of his earthly ties

chorus

And as he sails along ans walks upon those foreign shores
He listens to the passing of his years
And on the desert sands he feels the pull of ancient winds
And the whispered shout of God is in his ears

And at the dawning, he stands and watches
And looks beyond the sun for answers to his prayers
Seeking there the beauty that is leaping before time
Just beyond the forming rays of manifested rhyme
And in the evening with a bottle firmly in his hand
He drinks to all that he has seen, forgetting if he can

And as he sails along and walks upon those foreign shores
He listens to the passing of his years
And on the desert sands he feels the pull of ancient winds
And the whispered shout of God is in his ears

chorus