Coffins on the Waters FIJ

 

Coffins on the Waters – A Faith in Jasper Article

 

Coffins on the waters, caskets and cascades. The dead head North, mortality’s migration of unmoored souls. Bobbing in the broil of the rapids, chutes and Falls, scraped up on the shoals, river-silted, drifting past the uprooted tree trunks that await a higher flow, now water-logged and leaning, sloshing drunkenly, the pine panels yellow, caught in the eddies of the green-blue flow: an armada on the Athabasca of the terminable interned. Ghostly paddlers ride the current downstream, hollow knocking “Who’s there?”, when perchance their death-crafts collide. Coffins on the waters, caskets and cascades.

 

The passed-on pass by - before the frost becomes the Winter, before the river freezes an edge, acquires a pale skin, the river running - the river rigor mortis to be, vaporing mornings no more. Mourning, mourned, moving on before the crush of ice, buckles sides and pops up lids,- satin linings and fast fixed eyes revealed ‘neath an unseen sky. The passed-on pass by.

 

Escape the valley, seek a vantage point. Eulogies in the slough, strewn. Black ink on white, white on black water. Papered pronouncements, well-wishes, scribbled scripts on the spirit of the unembodied ones, “He was this...”, “She was that...”, like Summer to Fall, too soon does is become was. Cottonwood fluff fluttering down. The breeze is damp. Orange the leaves on the berry shrubs that fringe the beaver swamp, with memories mired in the shallows, muddied amongst the reeds, goose grease slick upon the black waters, not going anywhere. A wrinkle in the sky. The geese go.

 

Memories mentioned drift down from the branches of the gnarled fingers exposed by sun-weak mornings, the anecdotal aspen leaves of thought and remembrance, of summation and release, - gold, lovely gold, glorious grief - let loose on a wind that loses all things to gravity. Forest floors shall not be denied the stink of mouldering, browning leaves, sentiments of higher things brought low.

 

Everything is wet these days. The brush of bush upon the legs conveys the dampness, the weeping is on a million leaves. Drip, drip, drizzle, darkened bark, darkened skies, mountain and clouds stripped of colour numb the senses with sheets and pillows of deathbed grey. The condolences of the cosmos on the loss of, well ...everything (it seems)!

 

Sounds are muffled. A distant rumble as the train leaves town, rounds the bend, heads towards the distant sea, leaves the Athabasca valley behind. Gone. Left like a friend, ...an acquaintance, really. Someone we once knew, could have known. “Saw him at the post office a couple times.” “Saw her at the gym.”

 

Hope in a puddle on the muddy Bench trail that the horse hooves churned, the elk hooves churned, the kind of slick-rooted, slippery-rocked, puddled trail that keeps a person hopping, hopping not hoping, always looking down. Somewhere an overlook: the town, the river, the places people go, below. The raven croaks for carrion from hidden perch in smirking spruce, black-beaked, black-eyed, winged for the drop to the unbeating hope, breathless on the trail beneath, ready to break cover before coyote combs the kill. “This is mine, all mine”, says the black thing, the cruel thing, the thing that watches only to devour, that dines on death. But if beaten hope twitches, if pulse quickens and grey to pink does turn, then what? And how? Hope in a puddle on the muddy Bench trail.

 

Something has happened. In the South the sky has lifted. Kerkeslin is a-glow. The world’s lid pried open. Snow-capped peaks appear solid again. The ghosts are letting go. The armada on the Athabasca, the lemmings heading North, do eyes deceive, does Hope deny? Look! A coffin steering South!

 

Above the clouds, a Voice. Above the clouds, through the clouds, a Voice. Hear the blue-sky song of more, More, MUCH MORE!, than mumbled maybes, prescribed prayers, Hallmark cards “Sorry at your loss”, of vacant chairs, empty beds and tombstone dates, of Life’s little circle and Death like Uncle Ernie -just part of the family! O, to Hell with Death! (Real death is Hell.) Hear instead the songs of Home’s welcome. The Voice sings songs of battles done. The Voice sings songs of Faith’s reward. Hear the songs of Love’s embrace. The Voice sings Spring into every believing soul. Above the clouds, in the valley, over the river, a Voice.

 

Hope brushes itself off. Pinkened hope rises again. One last image. Through the trees, a parting view: A casket a-masted, fir crossed wood, a sail upon it, a vessel that defies the flow, v-ing to the Light. See it! A wake, (awake!) a hand, a breeze! The lid is flung off, splintered, a violent surge of Life. The Loved One stands erect now, stands with Eternal Life, stands in Faith’s destiny, stands with Eternal Life, stands with the Son of God - stands with Eternal Life. No undertaker, this Captain, this Christ, no graveyard clay beneath His lovely nails. Died to Death, lives for Life. The faithful flow to, go to, know a different fate. Hope brushes itself off. Hope walks back to town.

 

Dedicated to Mr. Andy Walker.

 

Pastor Richard Bowler

Jasper Park Baptist Church