A Ferry Carries

An early evening glimpse of the Essex-Charlotte ferry gliding past Rosslyn’s boathouse on its final approach to the ferry dock in springtime, before trees have leaves and Lake Champlain has boaters. As if motion paused for a moment. Big boat passing little boathouse. Suspended in time. Ferry rhythm interrupted. But this cinematic scenario is illusion. A ferry carries to and from. Embarkations. Arrivals.

I recorded this familiar view on May 13, 2020. Recollections from these early pandemic days have taken on a nostalgic patina lately. An interstitial ellipsis that’s proven (over the last five years) to have been a liminal space beyond our anticipation or awareness. Reacquaintance with the art of flux. Which brings me back to the ferryboat.

She might yet be able to find in the ferryboat that poetry which had failed her on the embankment. — E.M. Forster (Source: Howards End)

A ferryboat itself is, after all, a sort of poem, I think.

A Ferry Carries

The ferry carries
cars and passengers,
bikes, trucks, and tractors. 
It carries also
anticipation
and nostalgia,
the in-betweenness
gentling what was
into what will be.
Each lake crossing
a rehearsal
for letting go.

We speak of ferry crossings in terms of departures and destinations, but a ferry is not just public transportation. It’s a pause. Midway across the lake I find myself at a mysterious midpoint. McNeil Cove in Charlotte, Vermont becomes memory, and the approaching ferry dock in Essex, New York becomes almost real. Probable. Future. I’m briefly suspended in a subtly euphoric present, neither where I’ve already been nor where I’m going.

Soon enough this too — this euphoric moment in-between — will evanesce into memory. And I will arrive. I will roll-off the ferryboat and onto terra firma. Soon after I will be home. Changed. Again.