Penelope to Odysseus
When we hum the way we should, you and IRejoice in our bodies and call it love.And why should we not? Together we feelThe barriers break and the ocean liftTidal waves our ship rides home over the rocks—This is the joy our poem feels, threateningTo minds homeless in bodies nature growsFor no other purpose whatever we purpose.We each die alone, so much is certain,But together we sail argosies of healthThat bring us ashore with riches to share.Listen to them laugh, as they surely will,At our poem of love only fools would sail,But when we put to sea again, watch closely,And you will see them hunched over in sorrowGrieving they’re not sure what; but if we told themThey would not believe our story of a bedHewn from our olive trunk where our sufferingMetamorphoses into the hum of beingHuman beings sing to entertain death.
When we hum the way we should, you and IRejoice in our bodies and call it love.And why should we not? Together we feelThe barriers break and the ocean liftTidal waves our ship rides home over the rocks—This is the joy our poem feels, threateningTo minds homeless in bodies nature growsFor no other purpose whatever we purpose.We each die alone, so much is certain,But together we sail argosies of healthThat bring us ashore with riches to share.Listen to them laugh, as they surely will,At our poem of love only fools would sail,But when we put to sea again, watch closely,And you will see them hunched over in sorrowGrieving they’re not sure what; but if we told themThey would not believe our story of a bedHewn from our olive trunk where our sufferingMetamorphoses into the hum of beingHuman beings sing to entertain death.
