He stood and gave me his hand.
I took it in mine and rose to my feet.
He looked lost in thought,
then his face cleared
and after some contemplation he said,
‘Accompany me
on my duties.’
I don’t know what made me agree.
This was an odd request.
And yet, I asked no questions.
And yet, I simply said, ‘Yes.’
The Land of the Living
What shocked me out of my grief
was just how simple it was
to find our way out of Hades.
In my still-young mind
I had thought it would be
the current of a thousand seas,
the might of a hundred furies,
a path divined to be so long
that the traveller gave up
and simply returned to the Underworld.
Instead, Thanatos took the boat
to the very end of Mnemosyne
and together we walked out
of the Cave of Dusk, just as
Helios rode his chariot to set
the glorious gold of the sun.
The outside of the cave was drenched
in a better gold than the Elysian Fields.
