The Boatman Series (5) – The Boatman and the Reminder

Starless winter night, the cold dark waters…
the Boatman and the silent tales of the harbour…
are mere dreams now, that will not cease to recur,
even as he embarks on a new life away from the mire
leaving behind a fretful ferryman, and a sorry sailor.

How stories can change life, he reflects over and wonders,
especially those that have no writers, or tellers –
whom Experience serves as both mother and father,
providing perpetuance, employing Memory to nurture.
This Memory haunts and demands presence, like a shadowy figure
hidden in the darkness of the mind, like a hatless, solitary lurker.
And no matter how the Boatman tries to escape in sunny, tranquil weather,
from the Traveller, the mother and the miserly moneylender,
he ends up living by a waterside, for a reminder,
that what happened was as real as the waves of the lashing river….

© Isha Garg