The Boatman Series (8) – The Boatman and the Preacher

Starless winter night, the cold, dark waters –
the Boatman runs from the formidable harbour,
and finding a little church, does hurriedly enter
to bare his burdened soul to the preacher.

His feet thud on the the rug, haggard and tired
as he cries uttering an incoherent prayer –
afraid of deeds on earth and the retribution in the ether,
desperate for a confession, and in need of a saver…
Unnerved and breathless, he asks, ‘Are you in there, father?
I come unto you – a terrified, afeared rower,
escaping from the very hell hound and hellfire,
haunted by a miser – whom I did murder…’

And from the confessional, in all his incarnadined attire,
steps forward, the spirit, of the miserly Moneylender…

© Isha Garg