World-weary Odysseus lay exhausted,
seaweed twisted round his muscled limbs,
brine-covered and raw with wounds of ship and sea,
when above the sound of the crashing waves,
and the thin screeching of circling gulls,
a young girl’s voice graced the air:
Naausica leaving her washing to dry
on the island’s broad rocks, coming down
to the sea-shore to gather shells,
and coral branches hidden in the soft shallows–
A girl! Flat chest half-seen through diaphanous gown.
What could clever Odysseus have thought,
Athena’s favourite, when he saw
white soft hands that never held
the thin sharp lance or pulled at the
rough oars to come to shore,
smooth small feet, uncalloused,
that walked unharmed among the stones?
This after ten years of cursing, stabbing, grumbling,
This girl who didn’t even know how he could harm her.
Penelope sleepless from suitors’ arguing in the courtyard,
counting rams and wine skins—making sure there
was enough food and drink for the long-staying guests,
and now the return at last of him—
both too tired to even be happy.
When in darkness he tried to tell her of the song
Naausica sang, the light words rolled out
naïve and empty like glass beads on a necklace,
pretty but forgettable, the remembrance,
not the being, of innocence.