W.S. Merwin

Here's a poem by W.S. Merwin. 

-Alina

Odysseus

Always the setting forth was the same,


Same sea, same dangers waiting for him


As though he had got nowhere but older.


Behind him on the receding shore


The identical reproaches, and somewhere


Out before him, the unravelling patience


He was wedded to.  There were the islands


Each with its woman and twining welcome


To be navigated, and one to call "home.''


The knowledge of all that he betrayed


Grew till it was the same whether he stayed


Or went.  Therefore he went.  And what wonder


If sometimes he could not remember


Which was the one who wished on his departure


Perils that he could never sail through,


And which, improbable, remote, and true,


Was the one he kept sailing home to?

-W.S. Merwin