Odysseus

Carolyn Dixwell Cabot

As you set out for Ithaka
May your voyage be a trustful one
Full of kindness, essential, redeeming
For Penelope yearns for you.
Cyclops, Lotus Eaters, wild Posiden,
Be afraid of them always:
Only the search for your soul center
Will protect your own steadfastness.

Hope the voyage brings you sooner to Penelope,
Sacker of cities Homer called you with respect,
But adventure is a temporary history,
As are the pearl and coral of Phoenican traders.
Know that you gain immortality from the love of family,
But none from plundered riches.

Keep Ithaka always in your yearning
Because arriving home is the real journey,
Just as Penelope's spinning gives her fateful knowing
That the process is at home,
This is the discovery of a thousand voyages.

Ithaka gave you the going out and the coming in
But your life story is not new harbor's charm,
Nor Circe's spell, nor even precious amber or
Distilled history in Homer's epic hexameter.
Rather your life quest is in Penelope's patience,
Children yet unborn and Telemachus going out in search.

Ithaka is the journey; you will not find her poor.
Penelope knows tha altruism which states that
The galaxy is ten billion times too large
To have you as its memory.
When Homer writes your epic, it will be
Ithaka which holds the mystery,
For generations yet to come.

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