Odysseus

And when he returned to his native town, he found a sea
And sundry fish, and grass afloat on the slowed waves
And a sapped sun down on the sky's far side.

All errors keep occurring, said Odysseus to himself in his tired heart
Of what had occurred to him, and he returned to the crossroads near the neighboring town
To find the current road to his native town which was not the tide.

He came as a wayfarer, full of yearning and tired as if already dreaming,
Among a people whose dialect was now a different Greek.
The words he had taken on his trek as provisions had died.

For a moment, he thought he had overslept his lifetime,
Returning to people who were not shocked to see him,
And were too young to stare wide-eyed.

He resorted to gestures, asking what they tried to comprehend
From beyond the expanse.
Purple turned violet and sank on the selfsame sky's far side.

And the adults got up and gathered their children from circles around him
And hurried them away to house after house
Where light after light grew yellow inside.

Dew came down onto his head.
Wind came round and kissed his lips.
Water came forth and bathed his feet like an old Euryclea
And did not see the scar, and wound on down the slope for such are the ways of the tide.



Haim Gouri
daqui