"My darkness, are you lonely?"
- James Agee, "A Death In The Family"



Waiting For Odysseus


There is alone, and there is solitude . . .
But only here, walking late at night,
Am I a little glad for both, comfortable
With the sounds and silences of being
Adrift and despairing of any destination,
Awash in wet leaves, dew-drenched grass,

Following a weaving of moonlight stitching
Trees in a weft and warp that with dawn
Will be undone, the threads all rewound
And waiting, like Penelope's tapestry,
To weave another waiting for love's return.
So much to remember, but nothing to keep.

Tonight is not that night . . . and I turn
From where the hills roll in and break
In foggy waves to these wooded shoals
And all begins to unravel in the light . . .
Walk back toward home where the night
Is dying in the sky, the fire in the hearth.




Poetry by countryfog
Read 651 times
Written on 2010-11-14 at 15:25

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Enjoyed the diction and word placements. Awesome setting especially when we were made to read the Odyssey in school. The poem lifts with an air of expectancy.
2010-11-15



This makes solitary wayfaring an almost enviable proposition, though lonely, I acknowledge that.

I'm wondering at what age a fire in the hearth is more alluring than the simmering Penelope.

I never like to single out a line, but what the heck:

"In foggy waves to these wooded shoals" is ace.

This poem is altogether ace.

jim
2010-11-14