Odysseus The Wanderer Poem by Daniel Brick

Odysseus rehearsed his homecoming
many times, whenever he arrived at
a village or town. The word spread
like hawk's flight when he was sighted.
People assembled in the market square, and
listened to the grizzled, weary wanderer
of back roads and decayed cities tell
of days of glory and nights of luxury.
He spoke in his still commanding voice
of the world in its glittering days
before it all collapsed, haphazardly
incoherently, erasing all traces
of roads, paths, lanes. Everywhere
people stepped, they found relics
of that past glory. They brought bushels
filled with it to the village square.
They poured this debris at the feet of
Odysseus, and appealed to him, because
they were ignorant of the wide world:

Great Lord, what did this locket protect?
Great Lord, is this the hilt of the sword
mighty Ajax wielded?
Oh, Master, this coin, this coin, is it a fortune
in the palm of my hand?
Honored Sir, are there market squares elsewhere
that will buy our finds?
Honored Sir, is there really a chest of Babylonian
gems this key will open?

Odysseus rehearsed his homecoming among peasants,
they were all peasants now: aristocrats reduced
to penury, former kings bereft of thrones and
palaces, princesses seeking any gnarled hand
in marriage, warriors too weak to carry bronze
swords. And Zeus's lightning bolts no longer
creased the sky, the oracles were silent, rumors
claimed Pan was dead and Aphrodite had returned
to the sea. Odysseus wandered without direction
through ruined palaces, puzzled, wondering:

Could this be my Ithaka? This my sea port?
Did these abandoned huts once house my subjects?
That dog, lying in sun, too old to move...
That speaker's staff... Those discarded axe-heads?

But he did not linger long. Hunger and loneliness
urged his slow walk across cropless plains, over dry hills,
along harborless shorelines, plodding his march,
sometimes stumbling, but ever forward, to the next dwelling,
where he would be King Odysseus for a day of glory:

Your Majesty, we found a buried throne? Did Agamemnon
pass judgments sitting on it?
Your Majesty, is this the blue cloak Helen wore when
she dazzled men, made them forget their reason?
Your Majesty, is this the bow of the fabled king, Odysseus?