Styx Poem by Michael Burch

Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters, deep and dark and still:
all men have passed this way, or will.

NOTE: According to ancient Greek mythology, the Styx was the River of Death. The dead would pay Charon, the ferryman of Hades, a fare to carry them across the Styx to their eternal destination. (Hades was not "hell" as it was improperly translated in the King James Bible. Hades had heavenly regions, such as the Elysian Fields and the Blessed Isles.) The fee was normally an obolus or danake. The Greeks would place the coins in the mouths of the dead, but over time the custom would become placing coins, usually pennies, on the eyes of the dead.