"It is the chant the boatman taps with oars..."

(please open this music link in a new tab to listen to my recitation of the poem. The words were  born from this song as was an earlier poem “The Docks”I hope you listen and enjoy)
The River of Forgetting Karima Hoisan &Untold Stories~David Darling

The River of Forgetting
inspired by the song “Untold Stories” by David Darling.

The heart beat of my mother begins the birthing of my song.
Something so profound, put away tucked down inside of me,
I have heard it will be quite painful to be born.
It is the chant the boatman taps with oars,
while he carries us from what we know,
down stilled black marble waters
to that nearing shore.

When we leave the pier we are so full of memories,
but when we land, perhaps it is the truth that we give thanks
for a beginning… after all we’ve set aside.
Yet the boatman’s passage along the river of forgetting,
is one we are not permitted to deny.
Choice was a pre-bought ticket,
while my mother’s heart beat pumped for two,
to be handed in,
at the hour that I board this final ride.

Even if we suspend like ribbons in a current,
like leaves without resistance,
there will still be, as long as we remain barely mortal,
the yearning of our lives.
At the next bend, we cease the cramping clench of being,
release our fists, make open hands with ticket ready,
as down stream we are taken by a greater will to glide.

I will miss you.
I will miss not ever knowing you although we made a try.
I will miss you and you and I most certainly will miss you,
the ones who reached out my way,
and I always passed you by.
We are seduced delirious by angel’s teasing peep-shows.
We strive and dream and always fail to go a bit higher
than our little root-bound planted lives.

I will miss the times I said no…
to secret hidden nights and men’s winks that made me ache inside,
to the learning of magic tricks, leaving people on the corners
while I forgot to say goodbye.
The shoreline waves in hallucinations, and all I was… I am forgetting.
I regret only that I did not see the whole show,
because my fear made me stand outside,
too timid to let it go…
and take that chance and die once or twice in life.

My dirge like the wind’s chorus hums to the beat of the oars.
I am the only queen of this Nile,
traveling down the still-bound liquid highway.
Now my boat is made of reeds as who I was recedes,
I will miss you.
I will miss our laughs and silly games,
even the ones we took so seriously.
What do they matter now? or if they ever did…
My mother’s heart beat pumped me out into this life,
a push as hard as one I feel, now upon my back,
the firm insistent push that says,
“Oh mortal we are landing…This voyage is now ending.”

Karima Hoisan
Feb.27,2011
Misty Shores Linc Island SL
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