Psychopomp
The Guide of Souls,
he will carry you to the end of days,
where the Earth tilts and the tide turns restless,
the deep ocean opening as a door without hinges,
a gateway through which you will glide,
seated in the arms of his narrowboat, listening
to the turn of the churn of the wide, open sea.
He hears the rhythmless still of your heartbeat
as the loudest strike below the cry of birds,
grey gulls a-gathering and a solitary albatross,
wings spread, a soaring cross in a sorrowful sky,
your loneliest wingman on the journey in.
The ferryman of Hades, son of Erebus and Nyx,
he leads you from the living to the tribe of the dead,
removes the coins from your eyes so you can see,
vanishing his fee in his skeletal hands.
Eyes blazing, they burn in his skull, like Dante said,
dark cloths draping him from head to toe.
You watch his bony hands work the ferryman’s pole,
hypnotic, endless strokes counting out the seconds.
If he turns, you might spy a vulture’s head, a raven or
an all-seeing owl, but you’ll never see the face within.
If you stare too long you might burn, so the albatross
calls you to lose yourself in the swirls of the Styx.
Birds in their masses waited outside your hearth,
heard the last exhalations of your Earth-bound breath,
before raising their wings to accompany with
across the outer realms; listen to their dulcet tones.
The mighty Styx towers each side as the water takes you,
a passage between the waves for one passenger.
Outside, the albatross will head back for another
while the ferryman guides you to the underworld,
where Hades waits with Cerberus, holding your shroud.
