Almost, I Can Hear the Singing

https://www.pinterest.ca/clarkchris907/charon-the-ferryman/

It's okay not to know where you are,

the poet said.

It's also okay to know,

to understand that I am poised

at the edge of the riverbank,

the ferryman coming

around the bend.

The woman said, when she

came back from death, she

had found herself crossing

a great plain towards a river.

She could hear the ferryman

and the people on board, singing.

She did not climb aboard.

Instead, she came back

to tell the tale.

So I stand on the riverbank,

knowing the ferryman

is on his way.

What I have is this day and,

with great luck, the next,

in which to love

this beautiful wild world,

this wide sky.

Almost, almost, I can hear

the singing.

But it's not time yet.
Not yet.

This morning six fat robins

are perching plumply

on the branches

of the cherry tree.

I put my birdsong cd

on the stereo,

crack the window

so they can hear,

hoping they'll join in.

Almost, I can hear the singing,

their little hearts, and mine,

so full of gratitude
and joy.

The incident I relate is true. A friend of my grandma's told her this story about her near-death experience. I have never forgotten it.

For  Brendan's challenge at earthweal: River, Gone, which is about the disappearing rivers turning into dry riverbeds around the world. I conjured a different kind of river - or maybe it is the same kind, after all. Death, whichever way you look at it.