Ithaka
C.P. Cavafy, trans. Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
January 21, 2012
December 11, 2011
Asking
Asking for Directions
We could have been mistaken for a married couple
riding on the train from Manhattan to Chicago
that last time we were together. I remember
looking out the window and praising the beauty
of the ordinary: the in-between places, the world
with its back turned to us, the small neglected
stations of our history. I slept across your
chest and stomach without asking permission
because they were the last hours. There was
a smell to the sheepskin lining of your new
Chinese vest that I didn't recognize. I felt
it deliberately. I woke early and asked you
to come with me for coffee. You said, sleep more,
and I said we only had one hour and you came.
We didn't say much after that. In the station,
you took your things and handed me the vest,
then left as we had planned. So you would have
ten minutes to meet your family and leave.
I stood by the seat dazed by exhaustion
and the absoluteness of the end, so still I was
aware of myself breathing. I put on the vest
and my coat, got my bag and, turning, saw you
through the dirty window standing outside looking
up at me. We looked at each other without any
expression at all. Invisible, unnoticed, still.
That moment is what I will tell of as proof
that you loved me permanently. After that I was
a woman alone carrying her bag, asking a worker
which direction to walk to find a taxi.
--Linda Gregg
We could have been mistaken for a married couple
riding on the train from Manhattan to Chicago
that last time we were together. I remember
looking out the window and praising the beauty
of the ordinary: the in-between places, the world
with its back turned to us, the small neglected
stations of our history. I slept across your
chest and stomach without asking permission
because they were the last hours. There was
a smell to the sheepskin lining of your new
Chinese vest that I didn't recognize. I felt
it deliberately. I woke early and asked you
to come with me for coffee. You said, sleep more,
and I said we only had one hour and you came.
We didn't say much after that. In the station,
you took your things and handed me the vest,
then left as we had planned. So you would have
ten minutes to meet your family and leave.
I stood by the seat dazed by exhaustion
and the absoluteness of the end, so still I was
aware of myself breathing. I put on the vest
and my coat, got my bag and, turning, saw you
through the dirty window standing outside looking
up at me. We looked at each other without any
expression at all. Invisible, unnoticed, still.
That moment is what I will tell of as proof
that you loved me permanently. After that I was
a woman alone carrying her bag, asking a worker
which direction to walk to find a taxi.
--Linda Gregg
December 5, 2011
That Year
That was the year of quiet, one day threaded wordlessly to another. I read a lot. I cooked at least one amazing meal. I ironed joyfully, even my towels. I shoveled snow onto overbuilding hills of blank white drift. I did not delete my grandmother's last message on the phone, promising to call another night.
A reason for silence: What could I say that would not scatter her. What could I say that would not be pitied. Please, get that look off your face.
A reason for silence: I remember the color of the shoes I was wearing on April 1. Blue sneakers, reminiscent of Converse, with orange suns almost exploding on the sides. I bought them in Spain, with a man who'd fallen out of love for me. He said they looked "muy guay." It was the first day I wore them, because it was Spring finally. And then I talked with my brother, and I drove to a friend's house and she held me, she said sorry, I'm so sorry.
A reason for silence: the only thing visible out of a hospital window in Seymour, Indiana was a bar that sold liquor and was open at 11am, and closed at 6pm when we finally left.
If I let go of these fragments, the vivid images swimming up and straining against the surface of my silence, I would remember, maybe, the whole days, not just the essence of them, not just the clear distilled sound but the noise, too, of being human, that anti-essence of us which clamors and will not be satisfied until there is a train in the distance sounding a horn after we have shut off the beautiful music in another room.
Why was I elsewhere isn't the question. The question is, I was whole when it happened. I'm whole, and grateful. I live in a town named after a German city, in an elsewhere's twin. I can hear the train. Good night.
A reason for silence: What could I say that would not scatter her. What could I say that would not be pitied. Please, get that look off your face.
A reason for silence: I remember the color of the shoes I was wearing on April 1. Blue sneakers, reminiscent of Converse, with orange suns almost exploding on the sides. I bought them in Spain, with a man who'd fallen out of love for me. He said they looked "muy guay." It was the first day I wore them, because it was Spring finally. And then I talked with my brother, and I drove to a friend's house and she held me, she said sorry, I'm so sorry.
A reason for silence: the only thing visible out of a hospital window in Seymour, Indiana was a bar that sold liquor and was open at 11am, and closed at 6pm when we finally left.
If I let go of these fragments, the vivid images swimming up and straining against the surface of my silence, I would remember, maybe, the whole days, not just the essence of them, not just the clear distilled sound but the noise, too, of being human, that anti-essence of us which clamors and will not be satisfied until there is a train in the distance sounding a horn after we have shut off the beautiful music in another room.
Why was I elsewhere isn't the question. The question is, I was whole when it happened. I'm whole, and grateful. I live in a town named after a German city, in an elsewhere's twin. I can hear the train. Good night.
November 13, 2010
Postmarked October 27, 2010
Which was two days after she died.
I should be more precise.
Six days after she had a stroke that devastated her brain to the point that she had no measurable neurological responses to pain, light in her eyes, a voice at her ear. Four days since I left my home in upstate New York, three days after I arrived in Indiana. (It took one taxi, two buses, two planes, and 17 total hours).
Two days after we took my 93 year-old grandmother off of life support, a post office in Miami postmarked a birthday card she'd forgotten to send me. Someone--her renter? my uncle?--had dropped it in the mail.
Two days after I watched her body stop, her cursive hand moved through time and space to reach me.
It reads: "Happy birthday. I can't tell you this in person. But I will be with you all day."
I should be more precise.
Six days after she had a stroke that devastated her brain to the point that she had no measurable neurological responses to pain, light in her eyes, a voice at her ear. Four days since I left my home in upstate New York, three days after I arrived in Indiana. (It took one taxi, two buses, two planes, and 17 total hours).
Two days after we took my 93 year-old grandmother off of life support, a post office in Miami postmarked a birthday card she'd forgotten to send me. Someone--her renter? my uncle?--had dropped it in the mail.
Two days after I watched her body stop, her cursive hand moved through time and space to reach me.
It reads: "Happy birthday. I can't tell you this in person. But I will be with you all day."
June 10, 2010
Safety
You don't have to lock your car here, he said. He was crossing the little street from the academic part of campus to the parking lot, where I was walking away from my car, which beeped twice to acknowledge that I had, indeed, locked it.
I never lock my car, he said. Or my house.
I said, It's habit.
He said, You should feel safe here.
We were close now. I could see small tufts of white hair like steam evacuating from his ears.
I'm a gay man in America, I said. Safety is a luxury.
Bah, he said. You don't have to feel that way here. There' some anti-minority sentiment up this way, but you don't have to feel that way.
I thought briefly about saying Matthew Shepard's name, but knew I'd have to explain an unshared history. The air was exhausted in my lungs.
His car was parked next to mine, too close to the lines. Maybe someone should steal it, the man said, getting into his car, laughing. In his rear view, I must have looked like the majority, I must have seemed saved.
I never lock my car, he said. Or my house.
I said, It's habit.
He said, You should feel safe here.
We were close now. I could see small tufts of white hair like steam evacuating from his ears.
I'm a gay man in America, I said. Safety is a luxury.
Bah, he said. You don't have to feel that way here. There' some anti-minority sentiment up this way, but you don't have to feel that way.
I thought briefly about saying Matthew Shepard's name, but knew I'd have to explain an unshared history. The air was exhausted in my lungs.
His car was parked next to mine, too close to the lines. Maybe someone should steal it, the man said, getting into his car, laughing. In his rear view, I must have looked like the majority, I must have seemed saved.
March 5, 2010
Blackwater
You know when a beautiful man introduces you to a song that strikes you to your core? They reverberate in you. They're interchangeable, and yet completely resolutely themselves.
Maybe the man is walking the streets of his city. Maybe he is swimming at night, in a heated pool. Now he's waves, I can breathe him in.
I used to hate being in a body.
But it allows such amazing things. The marriage of art and flesh, emotion and sight. Distance and limit.
February 22, 2010
Tainted Love
We were sitting around a table, drinking and eating pizza. There was music on in another room. Their daughter, a very cute one and a half year old, was asleep.
We were talking about love. It was very Raymond Carver of us.
We all told stories about acts of love. The grand gestures are extinct, I said. But then Chi told a story she'd heard from a friend of a friend. Once upon a time, at the end of a good date, a couple who'd been dating for a year or so went to bed. And then the man asked his girlfriend if he could screw her armpit.
The gestures are not dead, I said.
Ooooo, baby, let me get some of that dry socket action, Timmy said.
After that, no one could speak. The tears crested our eyelids and ran down our cheeks. We were laughing so hard the dog ran to each of us, worried about our well-being.
When we calmed down, I said I hated Valentine's Day. That it was just a set up for weight gain, disappointment, or armpit debauchery.
Chi said, Valentine's Day is a holiday aimed at the wallets of couples and the depression-strings in single people.
I poured more wine. We all ate more pizza. I played Devil's Advocate, saying maybe I was wrong, maybe it was kind of nice, to have one day to celebrate love in the world. So much seems dedicated to tearing it down, especially for queer people.
Timmy said, Valentine's day is just a stupid holiday between Christmas and Easter.
Oh, no, I said. That makes it the taint of holidays.
We were talking about love. It was very Raymond Carver of us.
We all told stories about acts of love. The grand gestures are extinct, I said. But then Chi told a story she'd heard from a friend of a friend. Once upon a time, at the end of a good date, a couple who'd been dating for a year or so went to bed. And then the man asked his girlfriend if he could screw her armpit.
The gestures are not dead, I said.
Ooooo, baby, let me get some of that dry socket action, Timmy said.
After that, no one could speak. The tears crested our eyelids and ran down our cheeks. We were laughing so hard the dog ran to each of us, worried about our well-being.
When we calmed down, I said I hated Valentine's Day. That it was just a set up for weight gain, disappointment, or armpit debauchery.
Chi said, Valentine's Day is a holiday aimed at the wallets of couples and the depression-strings in single people.
I poured more wine. We all ate more pizza. I played Devil's Advocate, saying maybe I was wrong, maybe it was kind of nice, to have one day to celebrate love in the world. So much seems dedicated to tearing it down, especially for queer people.
Timmy said, Valentine's day is just a stupid holiday between Christmas and Easter.
Oh, no, I said. That makes it the taint of holidays.
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