Odysseus with the Oar

Having excursioned outward from 
the chartable currents of the human 
through eddies beyond the farthest reach 
ten fingers make in squeezing unfirm 
winds to fists that batter through them, 
now I make my opposing search. 

Inward the land lies, until no gull 
follows, or the salt-stained herb 
of the sea disproves the landscape, 
or both each other. Town after hill 
after river backward until the barb 
I cast pulls taut its humming rope. 

Interiors more desolate than seas, 
clapboard villages unlit by neon, 
farmers with twangs I never heard, 
in languages at last I cannot speak, 
all, all bewilder, drive me on, 
seeking a self in some strange chord 

my salty hands could never strike 
here in the tides of corn and loam— 
and yet whose indelible notes are mine. 
Perhaps I shall come at evening, wake 
a stray dog's cries beside the brim 
of a fresh lake while from the tavern 

echo the final gutturals 
of drunken men, now Elpenor, 
now Ajax, drink ablutions of rum 
instead of blood to see behind walls 
a dozen rivals round a whore, 
knives bared, and know I have come home.