ODYSSEUS TO TELEMACHUS by Joseph Brodsky
My Telemachus,
The Trojan War is over. Who was the victor? I do not recall.
It might have been the Greeks: only the Greeks
could have forsaken so many corpses so far from home . . .
But still the way leading home
turned out to be too long,
as if Poseidon had stretched the space
while we were wasting time.
I don’t know where I am,
What I behold in front of me. Some squalid island,
bushes, little buildings, pigs snorting,
an overgrown garden, some queen,
grass and stones . . . My darling Telemachus,
all islands look just the same,
when you have been wandering so long, and your mind
trips by counting the waves,
your eye, soiled by sea horizon, weeps,
and water’s flesh stuffs your ears.
I don’t recall how the war turned out.
And how old you are I don’t recall.
Grow up, my Telemachus, grow strong.
Only the gods know if we’ll see each other again.
Still now you are not any longer that baby
In front of whom I restrained the bullocks.
If it were not for Palamedes, we would have been together,
But perhaps, he was right: without me
You are safe from Oedipus’ passions,
and your dreams, my Telemachus, are sinless.trans. Zara M. Torlone