his youth, all girls he’d ever enjoyed, men he had slain,
for life was a blue well, his soul a honeybee
that flicked the water slowly with its wings, and drank.
The archer turned back softly, and feared to scare away
that frail-winged insect, the parched soul that drinks but sound. 200
With panting and protruding tongue, the sweltering noon
crouched on the earth like a bitch dog with pure-white paws;
all throats were parched with thirst, and the ragged stifling troops
sprawled by the shady river-slopes to escape the blast;
the upright sunrays lanced all motionless sluggish things, 205
and heads flashed in the scorching light like gourds of wine.
As in a dream within the fiery haze, the troops
watched lean giraffes descend, spread out their spindly shanks
and stoop with their snake-slender necks to drink the stream.
Odysseus walked, and memory like an army followed; 210
the sterile burning sands billowed and steamed in stripes,
far-distant yet familiar voices welcomed him,
souls rose and gleamed in the roof-gutters of his mind
and he rejoiced as though he’d come to his first homeland,
for like sweet wells his soul sprang up in every step. 215
One day amid dry branches in the desert sands
he chanced upon a man’s bleached skull that brimmed with bees
who’d picked it for their hive and filled it full of honey.
He laughed and turned to the awl-headed, panting piper:
“Ah, songster, may your fate grant that your head one day 220
may hang down, filled with honey, from dry desert boughs
that all who pass might say, ‘This was a great bard, surely;
his songs have turned to honey and his thoughts to bees
that even now—behold!—glean life from desert blooms.’
Let glutton’s skull become a wine-gourd, that brave lads, 225
drinking his health in future times, may thus invoke him:
‘Who could that dragon have been who left this monstrous skull?
This is no cup, my brothers, this is a bottomless jug:
one small sip strikes you blind; two, and the world goes lost;
three, and the earth grows new and like a daughter spreads 230
her freshening hands and strokes your dark beard drenched with wine.’
Let young men nail our Granite’s savage skull high up
on a tall cedar for a mark, then take their bows
and on gay holidays contend to bring it down.
But may an eagle seize my skull and soar to earth’s 235
top crag that it may see the world for the last time,
then may the eagle suddenly spread its bloody claws
and drop my head to the stone earth and dash my brains out!”
The piper listened without speaking, his glazed eyes
saw how the desert smoked and slouched like a rough beast; 240
the soft soles of his feet were scorched, he hopped on sand
like crooked crabs who scuttle on the sizzling hearth.
Odysseus smiled with kindness and touched his friend’s arms:
“Poor sparrow, I’m to blame for leading you astray.”
The puny fledgling sighed, then touched with fear, as though 245
he touched a cliff, the killer’s dark abysmal palm:
“Forgive me, slayer, because at times my mind grows frightened,
but don’t be angry, for I revive and bravely step
once more in your deep footprints with my spindly legs.”
Slowly they breached and thrust deep in the desert’s throat, 250
the scorched grass curled with heat, the road was a parched hide;
the sun, a round bronze disk, brimming with burning coals,
rose, spilled its flaming brands, and then was quenched in dusk.
The hot earth slowly cooled, all living creatures breathed,
God once more sprouted sweetly in men’s smoldering hearts, 255
a thousand heads poked out, a thousand bright eyes gleamed
amid dry boughs, in coarse-grained sand, deep in mud pools.
Camels fell down like crumbling towers in the wastelands
and slowly ground their teeth, chewing their cud of twigs;
like an old camel, too, the desert lay and chewed 260
its cud, as fires were lit and women fed the flames.
Fishermen brought their fish and hunters their wild game,
all three troops met, new life was launched on a sandspit,
but in the dawn all scattered, and the disburthened sands
appeared as though no prattle of men had passed above them. 265
Broad-buttocked glutton stumbled in a heavy sweat,
a well-fed and well-sodden shaggy god with thighs
of long coarse hair that shone in the bonfire’s blaze.
“I’ve turned to a nanny with old hags and bawling babes!
See how my breasts have bulged to suckle these small beasts! 270
Relieve me, if you love me, Friend, or I’ll squirt milk!”
With sour complaints he plied his leader every night
who only marveled at his monstrous bulk, and laughed:
“Kentaur, I like it fine to watch you stretched on sand
while infants crawl about you and children mount your back! 275
Now if the saying’s true that we’re each part of God,
I swear then, fat-ass, you must be his monstrous belly!”
They ate, and blond and black beards squatted by the fire;
sometimes they cracked coarse jokes to ease their hearts awhile,
and sometimes from their memories fished out hoary tales 280
or, looking back, told anecdotes of childhood days.
And when they lay in a vast sleep, they felt the night
stroll on the earth like a dark legend filled with sounds.
But black days crushed, the wheels of fate began to creak;
soon their scarce food gave out, they hungered, their guts shrank, 285
their hunters turned back empty-handed to starved troops,
and though they searched all day for some sweet fruit to eat,
all fruit trees had now vanished, not one leaf remained,
and only thorn-sharp shriveled boughs curled in the sun
like swollen-throated snakes that spit their deadly venom; 290
and ravens cawed with eagerness, and circled low.
Somewhere upon the sand’s frontiers the archer saw
a small fresh leaf that swayed its green blade in the air,
and the great leader lowered his now humble hands
and tenderly caressed the small green border-guard, 295
the last last leaf of all, and spoke to it in stealth:
“O glorious and despairing warrior, small green blade
who cast your spear against these fierce sands fearlessly,
you are the only comrade in the world I have.”
Thus spoke flame-eyed Odysseus as he stalked the sands. 300
At noon a hunter spied in the mud-murky river
a tree-huge crocodile digesting in the sun
with myriad birds that darted through his jaws and ate;
he seized his ax, knelt on the earth and warmly prayed:
“Great God, with your fat meat and all your oozing lard, 305
pity your loving people here who die of hunger;
stand still, don’t move, take pity, let me kill you now!”
He spoke, crawled close with stealth, then suddenly like a flash
thrust his two-pointed ax deep in the gaping jaws.
The beast-god roared, but when he champed his chops with rage, 310
the twin peaks pierced his brain, and the huge dragon fell.
The hunter knelt and
bowed to the great beast with awe:
“Our thanks, compassionate God, who of your kindness deigned
to give your people your own flesh and save their souls.”
All rushed and ripped the beast to shreds, and the young girls 315
tore out the musk from his dark loins and smeared their flesh
to arouse the young men when they lay on midnight sands,
They heaped stones, lit huge fires, and gave way to joy;
they ate their god and their hearts healed, their legs grew strong
and swirled in a wild dance when evening shadows fell: 320
“Captain, forgive us if we’ve said a word too much.
Don’t listen to our grumbling. Lead us night and day.
In Charon’s ancient tavern we’re all drunken sots.”
Fat words! They went in one ear and came out the other!
The lone man knew too well how well-fed men can boast; 325
when food’s at hand, their minds at once soar to the skies,
but if no fat game’s near, then hunger shrinks their valor.
It’s only the new-eaten meat that speaks so boldly.
Meanwhile the proud troops flew on wings and swirled in dance
then cast their eyes to the red West and hailed the sun: 330
“Light of our eyes, celestial drum with crimson hide,
beat quickly till we reach the castle of our Lord South.
His fortresses are dampening fogs, his roofs are clouds,
he sits enthroned amid his guests, the three wild winds;
some call him a pale prince, some the consumptive South, 335
a small bird sits on his red roof and calls him Death:
‘Dear Death, full forty brave lads march the desert sands,
dear Death, your palace melts and all your roofs are tears,
why in their hands is the great sun a crimson drum?’ ”
Thus all the slaked mouths sang in the descending sun 340
but in the violet dusk their quick-eyed leader spied
huge rocks that loomed like dragons in the desert sands
and ran off softly from his troops to touch those ghosts.
But when he reached their monstrous shadows, his heart leapt,
for carved on the huge rocks he saw strong rutting rams 345
amid whose curved and lofty horns the great sun rose,
and each ray was a ripe and bearded stalk of wheat.
Elsewhere slim maidens danced about a tranquil boy
who played a slender flute while a thin crescent moon
hung like a sacred charm from the sky’s hollow chest. 350
Their tresses fluttered in the wind like twining snakes,
their upright throats were lifted to the morning breeze,
and still the red cosmetics gleamed on their curved lips.
The archer stretched his yearning hands and stroked the stones:
“How joyfully you played in ancient times on these 355
dry sands, dear God, and passed full cycle, trees, beasts, men,
till Death’s sands suddenly smothered you and left no trace!
At times the heart can’t bear this tragic game, O God,
for what is doomed to die, had better not have lived at all!”
Foodless days passed once more, shrunk bellies once more gaped, 360
skin-and-bone Hunger hove in sight and hailed the troops
then took the lead, a captain dressed in filthy rags.
One day the blistering sun leapt down and beat the earth,
the conch blared for departure, but the squadrons groaned
and milled about their leader with black-eyed despair: 365
“You took us on your wing, man-slayer, pumped us with hope,
but what do we care for freedom if we have no meat?
Slavery with meat-pots is a thousand times preferred!
Let’s turn back to our sacred mother who tends her poor,
for he who fills our bellies is our one true God!” 370
The lone man leapt from crag to crag of frenzied fate
and on its gulf grasped and ungrasped the reins with joy:
“I’m not a shepherd who’ll lead men to fat green pastures,
I don’t want either their strong stench or their rich milk,
pity won’t make me swoon, nor will their hot tears touch me, 375
for I was born to hunt alone and to eat alone!”
Thus thought the heavy-hearted man and watched his troops
till Granite rose and shook his bloodstained spear with wrath:
“When you ate well, our God then seemed to you almighty,
and you all longed for liberty and its great cares; 380
now that your empty guts have shrunk, your hearts shrink too,
and like deflated pricked balloons your souls break wind!”
He turned his flaming face toward dark Odysseus then:
“What are you weighing, captain, now in your dark brain?
There’s no fine weighing here: we plod through tragic wastes. 385
Lower your eyebrows, archer, frown, give me the sign,
let few and chosen live to breathe the earth’s thin air.”
But the open-minded leader knew that exhausted men
yearn for and reach their god, and then fall back once more.
“Hunger sometimes betrays the pass, but sometimes virtue, 390
that two-tongued shepherd, leads them on to prudent fields:
do well and you’ll be paid well, give me and then I’ll give you,
don’t boast or overspeak, keep silent, worship power,
don’t eat too much, don’t think too much, nothing too much,
and keep your virtue, your world and god to your own measure. 395
With suchlike virtues man’s tall reach is cut to size!”
Life hung a moment on a spider-web’s frail thread
but all at once the slayer pitied their drained hearts:
“Friends, listen to my faultless heart that always knows,
much sooner than my eyes or mind, where fate must go: 400
Far off I see God smile and stoop to feed the flames
beneath long rows of boiling caldrons brimmed with meat,
Forward, my lads, let’s get there quick, for the smell chokes me!”
The archer’s large eyes overflowed with flames, food, trees,
until they filled with courage the troops’ hollow bones; 405
once more all took the desert road in the sun’s thorns
and sent ahead as guide that false air-pregnant bitch-hound, Hope.
At noon they passed through sun-scorched wastes with fevered strides
until, as their souls swayed and fluttered in the heat-haze,
they saw cool pools and sheep that browsed on greenest grass 410
and date trees quivering in the sun in a white town.
With eyes refreshed and hearts that throbbed like singing birds
they rushed with longing to embrace those emerald groves,
but these flew further off and swayed in flaming light
until they shed like roses in the sky, and vanished. 415
A dumb dread choked the mob: could this be but a ghost,
a plaything of their cunning god who grinned and mocked
their hunger now and flipped them in his bloodstained claws?
They gaped a moment, blank-eyed, at the empty light,
then all at once their knees gave way and they fell prone 420
on the hot sands and stretched their necks like calves, and groaned.
Gaunt Granite in a frenzied rage raised his spear high
and kicked them with great wrath to make them rise and march,
but they, like beasts with necks outstretched in slaughter-sheds,
huddled with chattering teeth and quaked the whole night through. 425
At dawn it seemed as though the sun had cracked their heads
for all b
roke into tears and shouts, leapt to their feet
and cried to the great archer now to give them cause.
When seven-souled Odysseus heard them, his heart flared,
the cap on his gray head stood up from his great rage: 430
“Who of you want to turn back now? Get up and leave!
Let all be winnowed here and the chaff flung to the winds!
But if you want grim war, push on, for my palms itch!”
He signaled to the piper then who seized his drum
and beat a war-tattoo; Granite swept on with his own group; 435
maids who had not borne children but had kept their strength
still pure, reared from the desert sands like savage vipers.
With a swift glance Odysseus calmed his trusted friends
who rose and gleamed about him then like brazen walls,
but mothers shrilled and slaves threw up their hands and screamed: 440
“Alas, we don’t want war! Allow us to leave in peace!
Cursed be this long-drawn task, this endless sea of sand,
O slayer, that has no ending and will drown us all!”
Their flame-eyed leader turned; between his eyebrows throbbed
the large vein of his savage strength like a curled whip: 445
“By God, then leave your bodies here for wolves to eat!
No one has ever passed these sands who had no spirit;
if you had spirit, even your hunger would change its course
and turn to a proud rage and to unyielding spite.”
He spoke, the people turned to stone, and their hearts sank; 450
the sun beat savagely in the sky, a poisoned fruit,
the sand’s thighs steamed, the dry stones broiled with haze and heat,
till a wind suddenly blew all traces from the sands
and the slaves shook with terror and raised their gaunt hands high:
‘We’d die before our time if you should leave us now! 455
Have pity, murderer! May the wind take all you’ve said!”
A wild beast roared and reared up in the slayer’s chest:
“My heart’s a thick bronze plate, my mind’s an iron claw,
I’ve never scratched my words upon the brainless winds.
I want your stench no more, for I hear clamoring wings, 460
and in my brains my brothers rise, the famished crows!”
The people growled and muttered, mothers tore their hair,
till glutton’s heart was wrung and he leapt up with rage,
snorting among them, and spoke boldly for all to hear:
“Dragon, your strength’s grown out of hand! Draw back its reins! 465