Odysseus stood swaying on the helm
of the black ship as it slipped from the shore.
The blind poet stood behind him
looking around wildly with an empty stare.
His son stood before him shouting,
"Bend to those oars men, let us be away."
Suddenly the blind man shouted for joy.
Odysseus looked out across the waves before the bow.
Two eagles swooped from the sky to the right.
They had caught a large fish between them
and now they flew off toward the island cliffs.
"Now the journey has begun with good omen."
And the crew pulled at the oars
and others readied the sail on the mast.
A good wind sprung up as they raised it.
Within the breast of Odysseus a flood was unleashed.
He felt his fate pulling him onward,
drawing him toward the unknown lands,
sweeping him toward the center of the earth
as he had once been swept toward the center of the seas.
He turned to look back at the receding coastline,
small figures waved, scattered across the shore.
But none of them had the look of Pennelope.
She had refused to see them off.
And now her bitterness toward him
seemed very distant, and very remote,
as if she inhabited another world.
From her dark world he had to push outward
seeking the light and challenging fate
drawn on by the promise of glory,
that light brighter than any sun
which lighted this bleak world
with actions that stood the test of time
frozen in an absolute past
which had never been present
inhabited by men that were never forgotten
in spite of the pall of death
that hung over each mortal.
Glory was always already remembered
in an absolute past that could not be forgotten because
it was etched indelibly into the memory of all men.
Pennelope slid into the dark recesses of memory
as the quest began and the unknown
opened up before them and made them its own.
"Let the journey begin!" said the blind scop,
"We begin our journey to the center
of the land by embarking upon the sea.
And the gods look down upon us with favor
sending eagles to the right as omens
giving us a smooth sea and a fair wind.
All our sacrifices have been received
and we are honored by both gods and men
because we are willing to endure the suffering
that befalls the wanderer and the soldier of fortune
taking what the gods and fate ordain
as we walk the broad earth and sail dark seas."
Odysseus answered these poetic boasts,
"We are mortals who follow the signs of the gods.
Our fate and theirs have been ordained before time.
We are caught within that womanly web
and must do our best to avoid the unseemly.
But how things turn out are beyond our control.
So we must always remain pious and fearful
treading upon the land and sea with light steps
using our cunning to avoid the worst
and using our strength to grasp the best
holding on until it is wiser to let go.
We will do our best to go straight to our goal
and return before time catches up with us
for time always catches men
when they least expect it."
Telemachus replied to his father,
"I feel as if today I have finally become a man.
Till today I stayed by my mother's side
doing my best to protect here and keep her safe.
But all the time I longed to be with you father
out under the wild and forbidding skies
seeking the light of the world
and in it finding myself
discovering what the gods and fate had in store
before time pushes me into the darkness.
Today I feel as if I could change the world,
by a single act make everything different forever
so even the gods would have to notice
and generations will know I did not live in vain
but claimed my fathers glory for my own
and made my name reverberate on the tongues of men
until they become mute and cease remembering.
Each man must establish his own name.
But no man can do that alone.
Each of us must follow our father's path
till we reach the parting of our ways.
So I am here to learn first hand
about the ways of the world."
Odysseus looked proudly at his son
and caught a brief smile on the poet's face
flickering for a moment beneath empty eyes.
And the men ceased their rowing
the wind caught the sail with a steady hand
and it was as if the spirit of Scherian sailors
still lived as the waters parted before the bow
and sea gulls skitted upon the waves
as blue skies framed the mainland,
home of wonders beyond imagining,
and their island homeland, small but precious, receded from sight.
It was a splendid journey that had been impossible
only the day before when Poseidon had blocked the way.
Now it was as if the sea god beckoned them onward.
Odysseus looked into the waters
as Telemachus took from him the helm.
There fish ran in schools beneath the surface
as birds floated about over head
and for a moment time stood still.
Odysseus felt himself fragment into many pieces.
Suddenly he was a swarm of darting fish
and he saw the mirror of the quiet surface
and in the mirror the school of fish reflected
while dark forms of the birds scattered
ricochetting beyond the reflecting mirror.
Then in the next moment he was falling
absorbed in a bevy of birds swooping
toward the same mirror but from above
and beneath the frozen mirror
dark shapes darted and dodged
as the shapes of birds overlaid them
in patterns of light and dark within the surface of the mirror.
And Odysseus became completely lost
as parts of him swam in the sea
while other parts surged upon the wind.
Each part formed a constellation
reflected in its own side of the mirror
cast against the shadows of the other
and in that moment Odysseus realized
that behind the well and the tree
was a deeper more primal scene enacted
and Odysseus fell into the surface
from both sides of the mirroring
and in the beginning of his second journey
he realized its end, realized the illusion
that all the parts of him had ever been one
and their ship stood frozen on the water
like the ship of the Scherians.
So in that moment was a taste
of what was before endless time.
No one thought it could ever move again
standing off from the once battered shore
and in the silence Odysseus heard the Sirens again
and their song finally made sense to him,
"Within the sea of the ocean
and the sea of the winds
the words of fate abound
gliding and swimming
each the shadow of the other
and the final answer is written
on the surface between them
as a song that lures you
to self destruction.
So beware brave sailor
we abjure you to keep your ship
safe from these rocks
hidden below the surface of the waters.
Beware, Beware you come too close.
You listen to our words
but our meanings escape you.
Pay attention to the meaning below the surface
or you will end up dead in the depths of the sea.
Pay attention to your course, keep it steady
lest you lure yourselves to disaster."
And as he heard the singing again
he began gathering the parts of himself
calling them from a great distance
giving each part to every other part
until the swarms congealed back again,
back into a single train of thought,
a single desire to win glory
before his ashes were scattered on the sea
or thrown into the wind above his barrow.
And before a single oar was stood up
over his place of sorrow and unrest
as he had once done for a fellow sailor
who killed himself by accident
(as if any deaths could be by accident)
descending from the loft
and who Odysseus had met in hades:
distracted, sorrowing, full of dread.
He had given that sailor a marker
round which his soul could pivot
as it endlessly longed for return.
Now Odysseus planted that axis
and within himself gathered
long forgotten fragments,
keeping his own counsel
and releasing the ship back into time
from the interstices between the moments
where Poseidon had lured him
as the had lured the Scherians before him
and Odysseus broke out into song,
"We are men caught between water and sky,
in our hands revolve oars and rudders
and in our heads the sound of the eagles cry.
We look out for signs and listen for what the seers utter
when they spy dragons that will never fly
and dreadful scenes in the future that make us shudder
but each man of us will go down giving it a try."
And the poet chimed in unable to contain himself
as Telemachus drove the ship straight for shore,
"Men were born from the differences between the gods
We stand at the intersection of each gods realms.
We are the boundary markers
set on constantly shifting sands
in a landscape like the unplowed sea
where every mark vanishes without trace
and every glory finally fades.
Ours is a brief passage from shore to shore
and no man can know what weather
waits for him or what will be his prize."
So went the passage across the sea
as the mainland grew large before them
and their homeland sunk upon the horizon.
And the sea remembered all the journeys
that had etched its surface
since the first man set sail
trusting himself in his foolishness to waves and wind,
and from the sea rose a crying
as myriads of lost sailors yelled
some last curse upon the waters
as they were finally engulfed.
It echoed upon the still surface even now
and Telemachus heard the sea groaning
he felt every man falling through that surface
with nothing to hold on to for safety
and the great clamor arose around him.
Suddenly he was gripped by immense fear.
He remembered how the sea spoke only yesterday
and how it brought its argument to the king
and how his small island had sunk down
within the walls of raging waters.
Telemachus looked again and saw
the sea with new eyes.
He saw majesty in its stillness and
beauty in its mighty restless movement,
then he felt lost like his father had been
even with this short journey he knew
the sea had him completely in its grip
and he saw the visage of Poseidon
in the waveless surface of the waters.
In that face he saw the possibility of their arrival.
Then he saw the possibility of an endless journey.
After that he saw both arrival and a never ending journey.
Suddenly the two seemed the same to him.
Finally he saw neither an arrival
nor a lost roaming without end.
He marveled that his father had returned
when so many had never returned
and suddenly he feared his father
for anyone that Poseidon could not capture
must have a terrible fate in store
and it was this way Telemachus
realized his awe of his father
and received the gift of the journey
at the beginning as well as the end.
And the blind poet spoke again
as if he knew the thoughts in the breast of Telemachus,
"I am blind yet I see better than all of you
I see the end of this journey in its beginning
I see the sea swallowing us up as we return
shattering our bodies and our spirits.
I do not think we will make it back from this wayfaring.
The sea yesterday was like rolling mountains.
Today the sea is like glass frozen still
and we are insignificant creatures
prisoner to the whim of the master of the sea.
Despite our sacrifices and prayers
I fear when we return the eagles will fly left
and we will discover the meaning of fate."
Odysseus was suddenly very angry,
"YOU would keep me from my home
after you lured me here
away from my wife and twin children
keep your prophecies to yourself
we do not need or want you on this journey."
With that Odysseus knocked the poet over,
plummeted him off the deck
and threw him headlong into the sea.
He sunk immediately beneath the waves
without a sound or cruse or struggle.
Telemachus looked at his father in shock
but the crew answered with laughter
and Odysseus winked at his son.
But as they went onward
the crew's laughter continued
until they realized they could not stop.
Everyone immediately became desperate
as a deep madness invaded the crew
suddenly they lunged for both the father and son
with fear and blame in their eyes
as their strained laughter became hysterical.
So, now, near to shore Odysseus
grabbed his son and jumped overboard.
The crew threw things from the ship at them
as it happened one of those things was an oar,
They clung to it and it buoyed them.
Immediately they began to swim for shore
reaching it quickly, pulling themselves up on the beach
only to turn and see the ship moving away from them
making its way back toward their homeland.
They sat stranded upon the shore
looking back at their lost supplies receding
and still holding on to that single oar.
Then at the moment they lost the ship from sight
the water before them began to churn
up out of the sea, slowly getting taller
a figure arose stalking them.
They were shocked to see the blind poet arising,
now walking toward them out of the lapping surf.
They looked at him in fear and horror
his hair was matted and his clothes drenched and tattered.
They wondered at him as he drew near,
"You can not reject me
I am bound to you fast
as your companion on this journey
whether you accept me willingly or unwillingly."
The poet looked at them with still empty eyes.
We wondered if the eyes were empty
or that which they saw was seen as empty?
We wondered if we would be overtaken
by some supernatural violence?
But the Poet only looked pensive and said,
"A man from Nyssia has many lives.
You see he even arises from the sea.
It has been his refuge once before
when he was chased hence
Thetis saved him and for that
received a golden urn."
He paused for a moment for reflection and then said,
"Dionysus was rejected by the gods,
the Titans lured him away as a child
and tore him to pieces,
the Gods chased him from Olympus into the sea,
he was rejected by many rulers of towns and villages
when his devotes came out to worship him in the hills
and celebrate the river of life that runs through everything
But he is a god that cannot be torn to pieces, drowned, or
forbidden his rightful place on the acropolis.
He is a god known in the East as Shiva,
the destroyer, it is impossible to destroy destruction itself.
The anti-production of life lives on within us always
it is impossible to deny it the ancient rights to worship."
The scop seemed none the worse for his recent odeal for he continued,
"To Thetis He gave a golden urn, because she saved him
beneath the sea and allowed him time to rest before he
arose from the sea again to take his rightful place on the land.
Thetis had been captured in her cave by Peleus,
the father of Achilles, who held her through out her transformations.
Thetis knew what it was to be bound to mortality,
she whose son might have been mightier that Zeus
if she had not been wasted on an mere mortal.
So too Shiva-Dionysus knew mortality as he is the only god
who has died and been resurrected again.
The risen one, the living dead and the dead become living,
the mixture of mortality and immortality, not in a marriage
but in a single body. His mother was a fragile vessel
that was destroyed by the thunder bolt of Zeus' love.
So Dionysus lived within the thigh of Zeus, and was born
from the father like Athena, but this one was not from the head
of the mighty thunder bearer, but from his thigh.
Thetis is the immortal bound to the mortal outwardly
while Dionysus is the mortality become immortal inwardly
by conquering death and rising from the savage pieces
torn asunder by the Titans who inspire awe."
Odysseus looked at the stranger
recognition flickered across his face
but only for a moment and it was lost again,
"Come, stranger who grows ever more strange,
I will not try to be rid of you again, soon"
Telemachus stared at his father
and recoiled from the strange one,
but his father picked up the oar
started walking across the beach
pulling his son along with him.
And as they began moving inland
they were stalked by someone.
Telemachus kept an eye on the stranger
and as he looked back across the sand
he saw only two sets of footprints,
but his father did not seem to notice.
His eyes were set on some invisible object
which no one else could see.
His father held the oar on his shoulders
they walked straight across the dunes
and slowly entered the hills below the mountains.
Telemachus walked between his father
and the stranger who kept a distance.
The journey had begun and the land
was opening up to receive them.
Copyright 1996 Kent Palmer. All Rights Reserved. Not to be Distributed.
Not to be stored in any electronc form nor published in hard copy without the Authors permission in writing.
Permission is granted to individuals to temporarily store and make one copy for personal study.
961116 -- Draft 3 -- epic03da.fm