June 24, 2003

Journey
By: Derek Walcott

But whom does this bring peace? The classic war
between a passion and responsibility
is never finished, and has been the same

to the sea-wanderer and the one on shore,
now wriggling on his sandals to walk home,
since Troy sighed its last flame,

and the blind giant’s boulder heaved the trough
from which the Odyssey’s hexameters come
to finish up as Caribbean surf.

The classics can console. But not enough.

                    

“ No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. ” — George Patton [Surely Odysseus knew this.]