Odysseus thinks of Ithaca
bathed
in the yellow-golden light,
in violent storms, hurled by
angry Poseidon.
The fields, mountains and flowers under
a divine sky that can never be replicated
in any other geography.
The Ionian Sea calls in the soft tone of a
mother missing her child.
Carried by the waves, the sobs
of
Penelope and Laertes, heard on gloomy nights.
Surfacing
the wet faces of Anticlea, Telemachus, Argos,
bidden goodbyes,
decades ago, by a man, in a big hurry, for war
he never wanted to fight.
Arriving at the familiar gates, finally, a hero turned into
a beggar stripped of self, dignity, history, legacy,
to find
a home that is not the “home” he had
always imagined during perilous wanderings
with the burning desires of a mad lover longing for love of life.
The place crawls with drunken suitors and unfaithful slaves,
filled
with noise and debris of the last-night orgies.
Is a return possible to the same Ithacan Palace
or
another challenge for an aging warrior in a place
long defiled by a band of pretenders, marauders?
.
Sunil Sharma
Picture Nick Victor
