Refuge
Archway to the infinite, can you
bear me through, can you
carry me across the threshold, my
dear healer, my well of divine water?
Each turning of the sun I drift closer to the
final hours, to flowering in the
gardens of darkness, and when my
hands close upon emptiness
I have been taught to be afraid of being forgotten, of being
jettisoned into the abyss, so I need you to
keep me tight in the heart of your fearlessness, won’t you
let your touch linger, my torch-carrier,
my muse, do not release your hold,
never let go.
O, my shadowed friend, tell me one more story, let the
paragraphs roll from your lips, answer the
questions that I net up from the obscurity of the dark
river of our passage, soul-carrying
Styx they have named it, for oath swearing,
the inviolable entrance to the deep
underworld, where the
value of my gifts, my giving, my love making
will be determined, after the light of me has been extinguished.
Χάρων, my ferryman, with your keen gaze, with
your flashing eyes, will you not speak for me to
Zeus Khthonios, king of the lower world, that he may give me
an eternity of refuge.
Charon and Psyche by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Charon_and_Psyche_(detail).jpg
