“A lighthouse is not interested in who gets its light!
It just gives it without thinking! Giving light is its nature!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan
Lighthouse at Fort Aguada, Bardez, Goa, India. Photo by Tony Fernandes
THE STUBBORN CAPTAIN
A Poem by Tony Fernandes
Adapted from one of the Sunday Homilies
of Reverend Monsignor Terence D'Souza,
Founder Pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church,
a Parish of the Archdiocese of Toronto,
in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
A captain of a ship
At sea on a tranquil night;
a faint light, a mere beacon,
flashing on the horizon, he sees.
The prow of his ship
Points in the direction
Of the beacon
And right into its path
His course is set.
In the dark night
Slowly the faint light
Glows brighter
as towards it the ship draws closer.
To the distant light
The ship’s captain a message sends:
“Change your course twenty degrees south
Or else, face the consequence.”
A reply from the far away light
The ship’s captain thus receives:
YOU please change YOUR course
Twenty degrees north.
The ship’s captain angrily retorts
“Change your course, I demand
Admiral John B. Smith, I am,
Solely in command.”
The distant light turns brighter
Its message even more clearer:
“I am unable to alter my course Sir”
I am Bob R. Jones,
Stationed Retired Third Officer,
In charge of Starshine Beacon.
The admiral, in a fury, a reply he sends
“I do not care who you are mister,
I order you to change your course, stranger,
Or at the bottom of the sea you shall lie,
I am the Admiral of the mighty
Battleship ‘Challenger.’
Humble Retired
Third Officer Jones
Distraught and frantic
Radios a final warning
to the great Admiral Smith
as his huge battleship now looms
even larger than before.
“Mighty rocks ahead of you,
Sir Admiral Smith”,
a message the retired officer transmits,
“Sir, you are twenty minutes,
twenty degrees too late,
for a ship this size
to turn either north or south
east or west;
THIS IS A LIGHTHOUSE,
Sir Great Admiral John B. Smith”.
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Moral of this poem:To listen and understand, is simpler.
To ignore with pride, the fall is even greater.
