Cocytus

He looks at the stoic face of the clock,

The fingers marching forward.

He looks at the man stained scarlet

Unmoving at his feet.

 

In the raging current of the waters

His cries are drowned

By the laments coming off of each

White-capped wrinkle.

 

Trapped by the fierce rapids before him

And the pressing of time at his back,

Justice appears with her scale and noose,

Perfectly blind to his tears,

Deaf to pleas and pathetic attempts to explain.

 

She must carry out her morbid duty

As no amount of regret and remorse

Can reverse the flow of the river,

The hour, or death.

 

And once the deed, her namesake,

Has been enacted on the trembling sinner,

He shall be nothing more

Than another droplet in the moaning stream

Of Cocytus.

***

(Cuenca, Ecuador -- November, 2018)

This poem blends my project writing poems about rivers and my dive into Greek mythology. Cocytus is one of the rivers of the Underworld. Specifically, it is the river of wailing.