Dear Penny; Strange years have guided me to this land where, in the shadow of a sullen mountain, I live as if walking on Achilles' heel, having bled not as a god, but as a man.                                                 -Ody (1) After ten years of drought the rains returned and the river breached its bed, drowning all the paths I had taken into the mountains. When an old oak tree in my backyard suddenly toppled over, its roots staring up at a harrowing sky, I recalled that oak trees are sacred to Zeus, Poseidon, and other Gods of Lightning and Thunder. This seismic event of Earth and Sky led me back to The Odyssey, the epic poem recited by an Ancient Greek bard named Homer, "the master of masters, the teacher of all philosophers."(2) After ten years of war the Achaeans finally breach the walls of Troy, and Odysseus, the King of Ithaka, a man of "unpredictable experiences, and infinite possibility,"(3) sets sail for home. But it would be ten more years, during which time this tale takes place, before he is able to complete his journey. Meanwhile, in Ithaka Odysseus' wife, Penelope, keeps the gaggle of suitors vying to take her husband's place "at bay with the trick of the web."(5) Why has The Odyssey been translated, critiqued, and adapted so many times?(6) “We need to know the writing of the past, and know it differently than we have ever known it; not to pass on a tradition but to break its hold over us."(7) Look Homeward Ody offers forty poems that break the hold on some of the themes The Odyssey rehearses, including: transformation, transcendence, finitude, nostalgia, trickster, hero, and epiphanies of the Gods who in this century "have become symptoms."(8) The basic strive behind these works is to redress complex issues within the modulating body of a oscillating narrative. Lastly. Even if we colonize the moon and planets beyond, Odyssean poets, who ply the high tides of human culture, will always keep Ithaka in mind, as arriving there is what we are destined to do.(9)   1. J. Weishaus. From, "A Letter to His Wife, And Her Reply." 2. A. Lang, Homer and the Epic. London, 1893. 3. C. H. Whitman, Homer and the Homeric Tradition. Cambridge MA., 1958. 5. P. N. Hernández,"Penelope's Absent Song." Phoenix, Spring/Summer 2008. 6. E. Hall, The Return of Ulysses. London, 2008. 7. A. Rich, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision.” College English. Oct.1972. 8. C.G. Jung, Collected Works Vol. 13. Alchemical Studies. London & New York, 2014. 9. Paraphrazed from C,P.Cavafy, "Ithaka." ––Poems are linked to each other at bottom of each page. —Notes are linked at the bottom of pages. Each note is then linked back to the text it references. —Designed to be viewed on a 13" or larger screen. May not show correctly on smaller screens.     INDEX of FIRST LINES 1. Be Weather Stone Cold 2. On A Street Named Vista 3. Their Journey Began In The Body 4. Wilson River On The Rocks 5. A Tree Sways In The Wind 6. Blue Mountains Float On The Moisture 7. When The Ice Age Ended 8. Large Ferns Seemed To Wave 9. Pearly Wet Grass Knows How To Die 10. When Enchanted I Was Drawn 11. From A Platform's Sprintered Rail 12. Humans Sit Behind the Dark Power 13. Muddy Switchbacked Trails 14. As Autumn Arrives Green Plants Slip 15. Will AI See The Virgin Mary 16. The Mountains Sensed I Was Leaving 17. In This Land Of Water And Mist 18. While Deciduous Trees Shed 19. The Wizened Oak Drove Its Roots 20. Morning's Trees Frosty Green 21. A Forest's Relationships 22. How Many Died When The Roots 23. It Was More Than A Decade 24. The Poet May Be Anonymous 25. Someday All Directions Will 26. Stones Drift Off The Path 27. The Paths I Sweated Into 28. Each Place Grows Its Own 29. Bright Green Leaves Floated 30. With The Pallor Of Winter 31. Although We Don't Have a Photon's 32. The Pond Is The Lees of Green Tea 33. A Man Sails Home On A Bottomless 34. The Philosopher Began His Talk 35. Pink & White Cherry Blossoms 36. Down The Street An Oak's Roots 37. Even Those People Called Native 38. Blood Spilled Into Our DNA 39. If You Know When To Leave 40. Two Decades After His Epic     To Susan,      to whom I came home.          © Joel Weishaus 2023, 2024