Odysseus to Kalypso, Five Years Along / Jeff Robinson

Bright haired and bewitching nymph, large-eyed,

seated before me at the cypress table

I myself devised with the lustrous bronze adze,

your customary nectar dish between us,

into which you dip your long mouth sipping,

for you unfurl it from afar, and drink,

as butterflies drink from the fresh dianthus—

and the fragrant ambrosia beside, while I

must tear the meat with my hard teeth, and chew it;

Calypso of the silky, dusted cheeks,

you say that I have scarcely touched my bread

these three long days, and look so thought-consumed,

with sullen brow, and sunken, wasting eyes.

You say that you have withheld no good thing,

and cannot see, then, what devours me.

Though the immortals know and see all things,

perhaps it can’t be said they understand them;

for how can they, boundless as they are

in life, in beauty, and in happiness,

how could they comprehend the reckless thought,

which leaves me without appetite for food?

In short, my deathless queen of Gygia,

I would not be immortal, after all:

for having lived my years upon the earth

my heart’s desire is also once to die,

to taste myself what I have wreaked on men

in hordes, in purpled thousands crying out;

though this “once” is eternal as your hands’

velvet, that ply their velvet work forever—

though I must groan for loss of sun and wind,

lamenting over gloomy Acheron—

though I shall cry out for you in those days,

wasted with years and gray, and far too late,

and you no longer desiring me as now—

yet even these things must have their sweetness.

These thoughts are keeping me from ruddy health,

from restful sleep, and strength-giving bread.

Jeff Robinson is a downriver guy, currently enjoying the company of his infant daughter. He writes foremost to recreate his mind. He has not been published outside of Detroit Lit Mag.