two old coins
for the boatman.
They are in my
pocket this day.
They will be there
for the day I
stop drawing
breath on this earth.
I would like
to think he would
barge me over
even without the fare,
but, just the same
take the coins,
take them from my
pocket and lay them
on my eyes -
for Charon.
It is the least
I can offer him.
His work is hard
and still so very
misunderstood.
He languishes
at the end of the
thread of this human
strand, alone and
still so very
misunderstood.
As I said.
His patience
is so very ongoing
and without pause.
Aside his wooden vessel
he stands, and waits -
the sand and stones between
his toes until a lifeless
corpse is dropped
on the gunwale plank
of pine become a bed.
And then, pushing off
from the edges of our lives
he is knee deep in the
death we thought we had
escaped. His toes now clean
of the gritty debris that lay
strewn all about our living.
He is giving us one
final honor, one more moment
of respite before the
disolution of all we had;
of all we were.
Take them, friend -
whoever shall be there
at my end.
Take the coins from my pocket
and gently lay them on my
eyes now closed in death.
They will be
for Charon and all
he has done to
carry me across.
For, when his work is
done, they are his. I
have no more need of them;
I carried them, all my life,
for him; for the one
who shall set me down
upon the other shores -
on the farside banks
of the Jordan, or of the
Styx or Delaware. The coins
are for the boatman
who is - as I have repeatedly said -
so alone and so very
misunderstood.
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