THE FERRYMAN

Three score year and ten,
even another seven
I have travelled,
sun rising and setting
on work well done,
some undone still.
It will have to wait
for another chapter
because tonight I meet
the Ferryman.

Charon knows the place;
the time we'll meet
written too in magenta rays
as for me the sun sets
its last time.

No regrets cloud my thanks
no fear of the river,
slower now than the swift moving channel
I deigned to cut
in the exuberance of youth.

The River Lethe trickles through cracks
opened several summers ago
but not before I earned,
and still hold in my own right,
the gold coin Charon will demand,
though not a word be spoken,
not a breath exchanged.

As we make passage on the River Styx
I know not what lies ahead,
less of what I've left behind,
but I will go to complete
my preterdained journey to the otherworld
as the Ferryman leaves me off
and guides his boat
back to earthly shores.


Kaaren Whitney © November 2001
revised October 2002

 

return to Samhain home page