song of tyro

(inspired by The Odyssey, Book 11)

Lapped round by sleep, I lay at the river-bed
and woke with Pelias and Nelias, each minute head
wracked with struggle in the voiceless womb;

I felt myself an instrument of wax;
pressed deeply as I slept, I had grown weak with heat,
and woke to heavy breeze
off the white sea.

How I smote for shelter at the earth’s grand thigh
to set its flesh about me for my bed.
But the great sea howls and the great sea wakes
and the black birds set a wreath about my head.