A robed and hooded figure punts a barge
towards a distant light on foreign shores.
Behind him, a woman in a shawl is weeping,
with her hands clasped in an attitude of prayer.
Between them, four swords stand almost as tall
as masts, with points imbedded in the deck.
On the receding strand, two more swords
lie akimbo, abandoned to the workings of the waves.
He could be Charon, fabled ferryman,
plying his trade across dead waters of the Styx.
But there is something in the scene that tells
of lovers fleeing in great haste and armed for combat.
No perished souls would dare to transport blades
so openly towards grim Pluto’s shadow realm.
Yet it makes no sense to carry arms in preference
to food and clothes and sentimental treasures.
So we know the picture is a symbol of something
more than ‘you are going on a journey over water’.
The swords have edges that would cut both ways,
except they are fashioned from the element of Air.
Unscabbarded, they gleam with the brilliance of thoughts
that mirror all the menace in your mind.
Each shaft is one that you could be immolated on,
but you hold them close and hone them ever sharper.
A shrouded figure leads a companion, more vulnerable,
away from a life of stress, while so much still
remains between them. The new shore only offers
hope of renewed battle with the same keen swords.
Because both these people are you: The war cannot be won
or lost and there is no sanctuary from such conflict.
No matter what you leave behind, you carry double
in a hull that would start leaking if you cast them overboard.
