Achilles' Song

    told me long ago， or I overheard Her

    telling distant roar upon the sands，

    waves of meaning in the cradle of whose

    sounding and resounding power I

    slept.

    Manchild，     She sang

    ——or was it a storm uplifting the night

    into a moving wall in which

    I was carried as if a mothering nest had

    been made in dread？

    the wave of a life darker than my

    life before me sped， and I，

    larger than I was， grown dark as

    the shoreless depth，

    arose from myself， shaking the last

    light of the sun

    from me.

    Manchild，     She said，

    Come back to the shores of what you are.

    Come back to the crumbling shores.

    All night

    The mothering tides in which your

    Life first formd in the brooding

    light have quencht the bloody

    Splendors of the sun

    and， under the triumphant processions

    of the moon， lay down

    thunder upon thunder of an old

    longing， the beat

    of whose repeated spell

    consumes you.

    Thetis， then，

    my mother， has promised me

    the mirage of a boat， a vehicle

    of water within the water，

    and my soul would return from

    the trials of its human state，

    from the long siege， from the

    struggling companions upon the plain，

    from the burning towers and deeds

    of honor and dishonor，

    the deeper unsatisfied war beneath

    and behind the declared war，

    and the rubble of beautiful， patiently

    workt moonstones， agates， jades， obsidians，

    turnd and retrund in the wash of

    the tides， the gleaming waste，

    the pathetic wonder，

    words turnd in the phrases of song

    before our song ……or are they

    beautiful， patiently workt remembrances of those

    long gone from me，

    returned anew， ghostly in the light

    of the moon， old faces？

    For Thetis， my mother， has promised

    me a boat，

    a lover， an up-lifter of my spirit

    into the rage of my first element

    rising， a princedom

    in the unreal， a share in Death

    *

    Time， time. It's time.

    The business of Troy has long been done.

    Achilles in lreuke has come home.

    And soon you too     will be alone.

    ——December 10， 1968