Fire on the River
The boat sways under a reddening sunset.
Is it wrong to wish for a Viking funeral,
to ponder a last journey West
into the dying light?
Strangers have always been my companions,
they intuit
the liquid, and inflammable nature
of this thing we do
- this poetry that is the life of us.
I could rest here in a free-floating skiff
adrift on a long warm wave of evening,
let the wooded lands and sloping meadows,
the smoke-stacked barge brimming harbors.
the patched up, river towns,
let them all slip on by
under the furled sails of evening clouds.
Just drift myself into the dusky flames,
as kindling for a starry night,
until the flowing waters enter a darkening fall,
or should I hitch this small craft
to an uncertain tomorrow,
maybe land upon another stump of reality,
one where imagination
can still idly play with fire?
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2024
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