Voyage

Sirens remove
     the soul from its vessel,
failing to slake
     the thirst or the ocean.
     Sails
billowing under Gemini and Scorpio, mute
oarsmen -- doubloons nailed to the mast
     retain it, retain. What we learn
from literature will not avail us.

Music, ocean, ear, all
     swell the tides of our bones,
     gathering us
     down into the undertow,
     bearing us onward, outwards,
     far from the place we would remain.

Our island with its' charmed forest.
Our lagoons, each with their Circe.
Their perilous enchantments. This habitation
     entered on all our maps --
     the place, the forest, the guardians
of that path, this dank lair, the gate of shadows,
and all that which, revealed, enmeshes and presents
the cup which we would drink from,
     dead or elsewhere. This
vision we are almost certain of.
    It does not avail us.

Only the moon prevails,
     solely la lune seule
         because of the light in the forest
         because we are the light, unknowing,
     and the leaves which it illumines, knowing.

The words of which
     hold
The sound of which
     it could be breakers
removes us, removes