Ulysses

Ulysses ULYSSES

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.(Tempest, 2.1)

Cross-legged I await
Heavens beams, to embrace
To bundle to lash with twine
drifting wood
While the waves whip the beach's grace

I hold the smooth forked roots in hand
Roots in time can break stone
and mold it as water is able
Water that feeds the root
Sun that feeds the fingers

I ask not much old sea
Dashing dead against stones
Barnacles tear at flesh and vessel
low birds impale the shell
to eat salty flesh

Everything and nothing is water
Eternal yet fleeting
Comforting yet cold
Supportive yet unwieldy
Reflective yet transparent
Hungry yet quenchless

Ye oldest mare
whose rising breasts swell

and hungry opens cavernous
to consume both breast and beam
Her victims wash about my feet
Ripen, swell abreast
resign this earth

Death who she knows best
who winged I've seen
who in decay keeps fertile, she
who drinks endless of streams immortal

I await her sea-nymphs call for me
Though I alone shall not quell
her endless thirst,
when half submersed.
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell
My life. My death

Deus pasit corvos
(God Feeds The Ravens)

– C.S. Leaf

© 2008

jbf@fergus.com
Revised 5/15/2008