Two Figures on a Boat

Carved atop the clay lid of a burial jar.
The dead at the bow, arms folded over
his chest; the paddler, deliverer of souls,
at the stern. They wear the same mourning
air: the excavated sandsoil mouth of the boat.
From cave-gloom to sunlight to museum light,
solemn sojourners have not found heaven. This
second funeral: the remains remain Neolithic.
They ride the curvilinear waves of hematite.
Water distances and bridges the afterlife.