Odysseus

And returning to the city of his birth he found a sea
and different fish and grass floating on the lazy waves
and a frail sun in the fringes of the sky.

A misstep always recurs, said Odysseus in his weary heart
and returned to the crossroads near the neighboring city,
to find a way beyond water to the city of his birth.

A weary pilgrim, dreamy and homesick,
among people who spoke a different Greek.
The words he took along as food for the journey, had died meanwhile.

For a moment he thought he’d slept many days
and come back to people who weren’t surprised to see him
and didn’t stare in wide-eyed disbelief.

He questioned them with gestures and they tried to understand him
from out of the distance.
The purple turned more violet in the fringes of the selfsame sky.
The adults stood up and took the children circling round him
and pulled them away.
And light after light turned yellow in house after house.

Dew came down on his head,
wind came kissing his lips.
Water came bathing his feet like aged Eurycleia,
and didn’t see the scar and continued down the slope as water does.

ODYSSEUS