Aeneas and Anchises / Jeff Robinson

Aeneas
Exile is sweet, the home held in the mind

Immune to troubles human or divine,

Golder and fatter each lash and every year,

Until the place for which we shed our tears

Is not of earth, and stronger, therefore, still,

We grow in longing, in fearlessness, in will,

To gain the thing which never can be gained;

The worse for us, if ever we attain:

For too long an exile creeps into the bones.

Exile is sweet, is sweet, is quickly Home.

Anchises
No. I will burn with my burning city.

Look: I hold my hands out to it, and warm them;

Let the fuel of my last warmth be this night

The homes and bodies of my countrymen.

I am not ashamed to ruin with these walls;

To make my clammy descent from this place,

With cold feet slapping the cold stone;

For I know that even the thud of toppled stones,

And the sandals of the awful Greeks still pounding

The blood-clumped dust of these familiar roads

Will sound, from below, like welcome rain,

That patters rooftops and gives deeper sleep

To all men weary from the day’s long toil.

Jeff Robinson is a downriver guy, currently spending his days enjoying the company of his infant daughter. He writes only to recreate his mind; but Mr. Hunter has requested to publish several of his poems. You are welcome, Detroit Lit Mag.