For Elize

We are both waiting for the ferryman.
Medicine is long, while the end of life
must needs be short on ceremony.
We need Socrates, the midwife

of wisdom to pass philosophically ,
when physic is poison, and hemlock
is healing. The living sarcophagus -
we determine what breaks the deadlock.

I look up to the height of the sky,
and 60 miles fall back down again.
This is letting death stand before, quite nigh,
and life a shooting star, lightning, rain,

gone back over. to land at Lethe’s wharf.
Farewell Elize - our sun is in the North.

Woodford Halse - 6 May 2026

In grateful thanks to my gracious hostess and conversation partner and friend, Elize Cronje of Wellington, New Zealand.