I had an intimation of this loss
when I was a schoolboy
catching ferries, and I would
watch the crewman coil
the rope that had secured us:
solid shore adrift and all
that churning thrust from
engines firing just below
the deck; pushed out beyond
to drift and turn and make
our river crossing.
We were a murmuring island
wrapt in mist, estranged
from shoreline certainties,
and Charon's presence was
a broken bridge, skeletal
in the white air. The river
kept no memory: our
trail dissolved in all that
moving deep and we lost
sight of every place we'd been;
shrouded by our journey.
Hi Rob -
ReplyDeleteYou Eastern Shories, with your ferry fixations!
But a lovely piece of work.
I never knew travelling to SVC could be so poetically put.
Dave
Thanks Dave. It's rather nice having a reader who comprehends the historic setting. Some have been dumbfounded by my going on about a broken bridge!
ReplyDeleteI too have written about a broken bridge.
ReplyDeleteIt is one of the most powerful images of our childhood.
Dave