Our good friend Steve Nash crossed over yesterday out of this form of life.  Steve was one of the finest men I’ve ever known, and his radiant love for all he experienced was especially strong when it came to experiences on the water, on lakes, rivers, and oceans.  So, Skipper Steve, it was right that we, only some of your many, many friends, read together, not long before your crossing, Alfred Tennyson’s poem “Crossing the Bar.”  And for those of us not nautical, it’s important to know that the “bar” Tennyson and Steve were crossing was the “large mass of sand or earth, formed by the surge of the sea, mostly found at the entrances of great rivers or havens, that often render navigation extremely dangerous, but confer tranquility once inside.”  May tranquility be with you, dear Steve, and with your beloved wife Denbie, your fine sons Kacey, Jadon, Dylan, and their families, and all your extended family of friends.  Here is Tennyson’s poem, written in 1889, a few years before his own crossing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNSET and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

And turns again home.

 

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

 

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.