he turned his eyes to the far East, closed them, and died.
The lone man buried him beneath the pear tree’s shade
so that God’s roots might eat and sprout in great-great-grandsons; 1000
all beat the grave into a threshing floor and there
their ruthless leader led the dance and called that soul:
“Grandsire, you’re useless here; revive in the rich loam!
You came to earth, you ate and drank, you clasped young girls,
you rushed to battle and passed through the whole wheel’s round 1005
till now, drained dry of duty and all sperm, you sink
in our dark native land, the earth, but soon you’ll sprout
as a plump great-great-grandson on a woman’s breast.
Here are some somber counsels, lads, to emblazon Death:
It’s only right we sing with joy the old man’s death; 1010
he’d lost his use and strength, he ate our bread in vain,
let his foul flesh descend to earth’s great workshop now
where he’ll be poured in a new mold and take new shape.
But when a childless young man dies, strike up a dirge
on his bare tomb, for a great soul descends to earth 1015
not to return, and God’s forever shorn of a sharp spear.”
Thus did the lone man strive to give Death shape and plan;
noon hung above the world’s head like a dangling sword,
and far off on a distant shore, on a high mound,
the bones of his forefathers stretched in camomile; 1020
a sweet sun warmed the fattened soil, and the worms ate.
Under the shade of a young olive tree, which once
the lone man planted on his father’s grave to suck
his flesh, a bronzed plump boy lay sleeping quietly.
A moist autumnal breeze blew round his curly locks, 1025
a gentle smile in sleep played on his chubby lips,
and his young mother-queen with her firm husband came
and slowly bent to admire their one belovèd son.
He dreamt that he was hunting bright-blue butterflies,
and as he leapt through grass, he tripped on a red apple, 1030
and from that fruit his loved, lost grandfather sprang and held
a small ship fully rigged, and smiled on him most gently.
“Grandpa!” the young boy cried, and suddenly opened his eyes,
but his fear-stricken mother seized and clasped him tight,
and the king turned his yearning eyes on his young son 1035
to exorcise that heavy shade which choked his dreams.
Was it his dreaded father who now had come in sleep
to kidnap his beloved son on his swift ship?
How could he guard his son, what sentries plant to keep
his father from swooping down and snatching his one child? 1040
The young king shook but said no word, and calmed his trembling wife.
Approaching winter flecked the mountain peaks with snow,
jackals put on their heavy hair, wildcat and fox
dressed with their fattest fur upon the mountain slopes
till God shook, filled with anguish, even in the nude worm. 1045
There is a time for earth to bloom, for fruit to knit,
a time for wintry death to blow trees, gods, and men
flat to the ground until the new wheel turn once more.
Man-loving life at evening sighs, leans on her door,
an unplowed feverish widow watching the long road: 1050
“I’ve plucked the petals of my heart out one by one—
will my man come or not, will my son come or not?”
Her cellars overflow, her great hearth glows like gold,
within her sunken vaults her stooped slaves weave, unweave,
she decks her body with branched velvet, silver cloth, 1055
but her voluptuous flesh grows withered like dry flowers
on which no sun shines and no water pours, dear God.
She smells, a long way off, the world’s far realms, and weeps.
Ah, once upon a time upon this desolate road
a towering stalwart man with thick mustaches strolled; 1060
his blond flesh smelled like a wild boar’s, and on his limbs,
his thighs, his loins, his shoulders, swift ships sailed tattooed
with thickset suns, half-moons and stars, while his warm blood
leapt in his chest like a red flaming beast in rut.
But now her loved man had grown old, useless in bed, 1065
God also had grown white and old and lay on the ground
where snakes and lizards coiled, where bats swooped at his side:
“Winter has come, grandfather, we’re drowsy, let us thrust
in your dark hollows and white hair to sleep in warmth;
O, bless us now that we in time may greet the sun.” 1070
The old man heard, spread out his hands and blessed the beasts,
Odysseus also heard, and sighed, for at his feet
he felt rain fall that would revive his fathers that day.
“When it rains hard, the dead file out from earth like snails,
their white bones creak, their lips are filled with mud, they weep, 1075
but they fall down once more in mire and sucking soil;
the dead deserve a feast day in the heart of winter—
when shall my town be built and all things take their place?”
He pondered how to bring a new uncommon scope,
beyond man’s reach, to weddings, births, and even death. 1080
Slowly the rain stopped drizzling, and the archer stooped
to smell the odor of moist earth till his mind filled
with thick and poisonous mists that brimmed with ghosts and sounds;
Rala rose suddenly in the evening’s humid dusk
with her bronze flashing anklet, and her swollen lips 1085
moved like a wound within the mist and closed again.
“Rala,” her sighing leader cried with wide-flung arms,
but pelting rain began to fall, the earth grew dim,
till Rala like a hollow bubble sank in earth.
“Alas, the dead lie far too heavily on my chest,” 1090
the archer murmured, as he clawed his wounded heart.
Deep in dark humid Tartarus, the earth ground its dead,
the sun spun on and then plunged down the foggy fields,
and the archer mutely strove to break free from the dead.
His people in God’s cave began their winter’s night work. 1095
God was the only master of all, of earth and tools;
walls between souls were tumbled down, what’s yours, what’s mine,
all worked like brothers and like brothers shared all things.
Some built and carved out cradles, some hewed wooden yokes,
some chiseled charms for which Odysseus sketched a face 1100
to copy out and hang round their protected throats:
a small, small dwarf filled with unsated eyes and ears,
with yearning, flaring nostrils, gaping, greedy lips,
on whose nude body mystic symbols cried aloud:
“Look, listen, smell, taste, touch all things with all your heart!” 1105
As the resourceful planner roamed about the cave
he took delight in watching his troops work and play
till legend, rain, and God all merged within his heart
and the night work rose calmly in his mind and shone
like secret warlike eves before a battle dawns 1110
when all the savage armor glows and flesh is honed.
All cradles shone like shields, all spindles gleamed like spears,
and the work-tools of women, fishermen, and farmers
hung in the archer’s drafted mind like tools of war.
The dead had fed him poison, he could be
ar no more 1115
and longed to raise all humble work to a high plane:
“Brothers, our fingertips flash fire like God’s own;
when our hands touch the world, the world’s face is transformed,
the stone is saved if we but pick it from the road
and wedge it in our homes or in the slingshot’s cradle 1120
or on it carve the symbols of our hearts with skill;
all seed is saved if sown with patience in the soil
for its jail opens and God sprouts like a green shoot.
Each soul holds round itself its special threshing floor
of passions, dreams, and thoughts, of mortals, beasts, and trees. 1125
Forward, my brothers, free them and you free your souls!
If you’re a worker, plow the earth, help her to bear;
if you’re a soldier, throw the sharp spear ruthlessly
for it’s your task to kill, though others may show pity.
God smothers in the foe, he chokes and cries out, ‘Help! 1130
O, kill this body, Son, that I may climb still further!”
If you’re a woman, choose your mate with extreme care,
yoke tight the strongest man like a great ox with smiles
and tears to sow you children in your fecund womb;
the female God within you chooses him, not you! 1135
When to your bosom you clasp a son to give him suck,
say then: ‘This son is God, may he drink all my milk!’”
Thus in the deep night work the suffering man unwound
and proudly lifted high the fate of man and maid;
all souls now moved and fluttered on the chasm’s lips, 1140
his words fell whole in every heart, but each heart hatched
that mighty Word, the egg of God, in its own special way.
Midwinter, in those ten days holy to all birds,
the gulls begged God to let the sun appear, to calm
the furious winds and soothe the seas that they might find 1145
time on some sunny stretch of shore to hatch their eggs.
The Old Man heard, smiled on the earth and sent the sun
till seashores shone with warmth of birds hatching their eggs.
When the archer saw the sun, he seized his chiseling tools
and walked about his city walls to carve new laws; 1150
loud voices and commands tormented his dark head
until he let them loose on rock to free his mind.
Sparks flew until his tools and slabs of stone caught fire,
his beard and hair filled with blue smoke and flying chips,
but he bent low and hewed his God to bind him tight 1155
in thick and mystic snares that he might never flee.
He carved flames, blood-drenched roads that rose in zigzag curves,
he carved trees, beasts, and hearts, a swift and slender ship,
and that small bird, frail freedom, with a wounded breast.
He chiseled ten dark slabs of rock with ten commands: 1160
“God groans, he writhes within my heart and cries for help.”
“God chokes within the ground and leaps from every grave.”
“God stifles in all living things, kicks them, and soars.”
“All living things to right or left are his co-fighters.”
“Love wretched man at length, for he is you, my son.” 1165
“Love plants and beasts at length, for you were they, and now
they follow you in war like faithful friends and slaves.”
“Love the whole earth, and all its waters, soil, and stones;
on these I cling to live, for I’ve no other steed.”
“Each day deny your joys, your wealth, your victories, all.” 1170
“The greatest virtue on earth is not to become free
but to seek freedom in a ruthless, sleepless strife.”
He seized the last rock then and carved an upright arrow
speeding high toward the sun with pointed thirsty beak;
the last command leapt mutely on the empty stone 1175
to the archer’s joy, as though he’d shot his soul into the sun.
They planned to inaugurate their town at the full moon
because its four wings now rose toward the sun, its thick
strong bulwarks and its massive high watchtowers.
Kentaur could not stay on the plain from his great joy 1180
but climbed to a tall cliff and watched all seethe below;
he heard far women’s laughter, children’s wails and shouts,
and saw smoke hover in the tranquil evening air.
Broad-bottom’s mind shook when he thought how man’s seed falls
to earth and there takes shape and grows to monstrous size. 1185
A nude much-suffering couple came to a cool spring,
bent down and tasted water, crumbled the soft soil:
“Dear wife, unload, we’ll strike our roots in this good place.”
Deep in the woods he raised his ax while his wife knelt,
set up her simple hearth and lit her fire there; 1190
they hacked down trees, gathered and hewed thick cornerstones,
then hurriedly set to building their son’s sacred hut.
Lizards came quietly on rocks and watched, the dog
roamed round his master’s property to guard it well
and mark its boundaries on the earth with barks and growls. 1195
Thrust in the flames between two hearthstones, God swirled high
and gazed upon all things on earth, future and past;
if he but wished, he could leap out, snatch off the roof
and swallow in one gulp the couple’s sacred toil,
but out of pity he sat serenely and held his strength: 1200
he watched the woman kneel to cook her simple food,
and he delighted to keep vigilant watch at night
and warm the two nude bodies nestling in the wilds.
Thus did man’s myth begin on earth, thus do sons come 1204
and set the bobbin whirling round with a new speed 1205
and spin life’s crimson thread to still more greater heights.
In Kentaur’s mind, God, the sweet water, flames and dog,
the man, his wife, his son, were bound in a tight noose,
enwrapped in crimson thread until they gasped for breath. 1209
“Ah, fellows, if I only knew in this strange world 1210
for whom we wind the thread or warp the yarn, and who
sits at the loom and weaves, unweaves this strange design
with the bright woof of life and the dark warp of death!”
Tall on the cliff, he closed his eyes, shut out the town,
but it still proudly gleamed in the sun’s blazing rays: 1215
“Man’s life, dear God, is but the blinking of an eye.”
Then he smiled wryly, stretched until his bone-joints creaked,
and lunged down toward the glen to gather myrtle boughs
and deck the four town gates with greens so that at dawn
the town might glow within God’s loving arms, a virgin bride. 1220
Meanwhile Odysseus swiftly climbed the high watchtower
which he had raised with fir boughs on the mountain slope
that in pure solitude he might commune with God.
The air grew more ethereal, smelled of mountain musk,
and like a woman finally freed, who holds her son 1225
tight in her arms, a high achievement toughly earned,
thus did the archer clasp his town tight in his soul.
“What is this life, dear God! How tightly merged in one
with our own souls are women, air, the light, the sea!
Ah, Earth, dear wife, might we but march eternally 1230
each by the other’s side through pelting rain and storm
till, O sweet comrade, our hearts brim with jo
y and pain;
to watch you in the lightning flash and place my hand
on your curved belly, your white shoulders, your warm throat!”
The lone man’s full heart danced, his spreading city gleamed, 1235
white and untouched, like a bull-calf just born that lifts
its large eyes slowly to the world for the first time.
When in his brain he’d hatched it like an egg, he had
not thought such a bright, wide-winged hawk would burst in air—
always the soul casts up high, unexpected peaks! 1240
The archer’s eyelids fluttered with great happiness:
“O my bright city, shield of God, my body’s thought,
you rise on earth in three tiers like my mounting heart:
your feet are rock and clay set in huge cornerstones,
your ruthless chest is made of hewn commands of laws, 1245
your tall peak vanishes in air like a great cry!”
A heavy heat and stifling clouds rolled down, rocks broiled,
the lead sky slowly melted in thick sweating drops
and not a single tree leaf rustled or wing moved.
Then through the thickening light the archer slowly moved 1250
and gasped until he reached his dark ascetic hut,
and when he stooped and crossed the doorway, his eyes calmed
to gaze on his lean bow that from a column hung
and made his heart leap like a child who longs to play.
His joy so overwhelmed him that it could not stop 1255
within his motionless hot body, cribbed, confined,
for his town glowed deep in his palm, a crimson apple.
He reached and grasped his world-renowned ancestral bow,
but as he squeezed it tight, it crumbled in his hands
and vanished as a white smoke rose in the blue light. 1260
He scowled, shot piercing glances round, then slowly rubbed
his bow’s thin bark between his flaming fingertips
and sagged against the column as his wild heart seethed;
but as he rubbed it, the new tree trunk creaked, then hung
and hovered like a white ghost, scattered in swirling smoke, 1265
and as the roof crumbled to earth, the whole hut vanished.
His gray hair stood on end, he leapt through clouds of dust,
glared fiercely round, growled like a beast, and his jaws shook,
but mastering his dumb terror, he stopped his teeth from chattering,
Steadied his dreaded spirit till his bone-joints knit, 1270
then felt ashamed, grew bold once more and kicked the dust:
“By God, who’s master here? I knock! Come out and face me!”
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel Page 80
