Poem: September 26, 2019

The Odyssey

What can anyone do fifteen years after
falling in love, an event on the scale of
war or natural disaster, in which young
lovers are thrown out of control, lost
to cosmic forces, tossed about and left
to act like lunatics, consumed with a
mighty purpose, making mighty claims,
being brought low with uncertainty and
weeping into the winds, every word as
critical, as colossal as it was, and every
moment together some undiscovered
country, a narrow map and shifting X.
Heroes return from these adventures,
and, let's be honest, they are changed,
but as difficult as it is to settle in, as
difficult as it is to recover themselves,
home finds its way into their lives in
the form of schedules and comforts, in
old habits and recovered possessions,
but even fifteen years later, the memory
of one's own helplessness and heroics
in the face of the only one great thing
that mattered can feel like a purpose lost,
can feel like dusty mythology, can cause
a person, now safely settled, to wonder
if they've become a disappointment.