Fire On the Ohio River

The boat rocks gently under a reddening sun; is it wrong to wish for a Viking funeral, to ponder a last journey West into the dying light? I could rest my soul here in this skiff on this long warm wave of evening; allowing the wooded lands, the sloping meadows, the smoke-stacked barge brimming ports, the patched up river towns to slip on by under the kindling sails of evening clouds. Night slips into the river. I hitch the boat to a stump of land, still imagining a Viking ending, but also resigned that tomorrow - will be one more place to play with fire.