The Boatman Disappointed

The boatman

Has grown a long
grey beard,
Like a holy man, a monk
With a tall hat,
And a strumming
Ancient oar.
He waits today
and the fates
Declare
there are no takers,
For the journey anywhere,
And just before I’m ready
To pay his fare and more, to distant shore
He overturns his boat
On sandy shore,
and disappears.
Somehow, sometimes,
we all retire and disappear

instead of waiting,
To succeed,
Just before the next new
Traveler
Is about to pay;
But tomorrow;
Tomorrow is yet
another day.

The Land

The land was distant

and unknown.

Fathers had spoken of it often,

but back then we simply

couldnt have known

that

there was no becoming then.

We were not ripe,

We we were not grown.

Years past

we laboured

and it remained

a sepia coloured

picture slightly stained.

A place far away

and vast;

A place away,

A place unknown,

A place of peace,

And just a dream,

a single digit out of grasp.

A place trees,

of dancing leaves,

of stone,

of flowing streams;

A place of sunlight

set in midday dreams,

that quiet white blankets

covered on distant winter eves.

As generations grew

to men and women,

as did the strifes and labours too,

with loss and fear,

And costly prices paid

the children died,

the children grew.

Yet with many long and distant

journeys,

coursing back and forth,

sometimes with the many,

sometimes one alone,

The father’s dream in time

became,

the children’s

father’s home.