Odysseus Hears of the Death of Kalypso
All their songs are of one hour
Before dawn, when the birds begin.
I sing another.
In helpless midday, at the hour
Even sparrows have no heart to shrill
Comes news . . . Suddenly, the unimaginable
Needs imagination and finds none.
Violet ocean only nothing.
Smoke of thyme and of cedar,
Ornate birds, nothing.
Even a god who came here,
Hearing a sweet voice,
Would find only old fires now,
Brittle in the blackened trees.
She was mast and sail. She was
A stillness pregnant with motion,
Adorable to me as, all my life,
I have hidden a cruel, secret ocean
In sinews and in sleep and cowardice.
She forgave me. Once, she wept for me.
Our child died then, and she is with him.
From his first book, New Dark Ages, I have found such peering intelligence and vision in Revell's work.
