The Key

By Reagan Ralph

For four winters he carried a key.

Never in pockets,

but around his neck.

Never letting go asleep or awake.

Passing time tarnished its surface,

yet he still walks through the rain,

still walks through the snow,

still walks through the pain.

The Ferryman approaches.

An oar releasing the waters tension with every row.

Every motion never rigid.

Every motion keeps rhythm.

Every motion without thought.

On arrival the man came aboard.

His key rattles from the step.

The Ferryman asks.

“What is the key for?”

“For a crypt.” he replies.

The man spent many hours, days and years,

in landscapes of departure.

His neck hunching very gradually over time.

Cleaning the moss on every grave, so he never forgets each name.

“Does it still open the crypt?”

“Not any more.”

“Then why do you carry it?”

“For a certain corpse”

No longer able to open the door.

Now it keeps a new door locked, yet unable to open.

Years of skin accumulating on his key.

Skin unable to fully shed.

Unable to depart from his necklace

He holds his key during strong waves.

Clank, clank, clank.

The key buried inside the boats wood crevices.

It’s own crypt deep inside.

“What do you fear will happen if it stays buried?”

“I am afraid to lose her once again”

“You trust in decay for everyone else. Why not yourself?”

His claw loosens.

His face softens.

He steps onto new land and departs.

Tap, tap, tap. The key moved with every row.

Free from its imprisonment.

The Ferryman places it into his box.

Reflection:

I wrote this poem after reflecting on someone I know. Their attachments sparked a question that stayed with me. Can attachment sometimes masquerade as care? I wanted to explore that question through the experience of grief, and more specifically when identity becomes entwined with grief. I centred this theme around another question. When does remembrance become another chain?

The key became the central symbol of that chain. It begins as an object of love and remembrance, but gradually it no longer keeps the dead within the tomb. It keeps the living bound to a past that can no longer become.

Throughout the poem, I used decay as a symbol for continuity. Nature continually teaches us that change is neither failure nor betrayal. The river The Ferryman crosses never preserves the same water, trees shed their leaves and decay becomes fertile ground for new life. Yet when grief becomes our own, we often ask ourselves to remain unchanged.

Perhaps the deepest question this poem asks is not whether we remember those we have lost, but whether they would wish us to become another monument beside them.

I would like to leave you with one final question:

What have I continued to carry long after it stopped opening the door it was meant for?

Thank you for reading.