This is a companion piece to 'Rimbaud at Harar' and I thought I would
post it. It was written in 1989 in reply to Georgew Steiner's essay
'REal Presences'. It is in my book 'Disbanded', and in 'Selected Poems'.
Theocritus at Alexandria
Where does it come from Where oh where
The words flow forever tapped from some deep lair.
I cannot remember.
I have forgotten the smell of the byre;
The suck of nozzles at the cow's teats,
Descending milk turning the face of the cooler white,
I hear it no longer.
The silence at mid-day in the olive grove
As Pan rests from his hunting,
I cannot remember the silence across the narrow valleys.
Cos and Sicily are gone from me.
I am too old. Older than Philetas.
Here I sit in this Library
Waiting for the committee meeting
Where we will continue to classify four hundred years.
When I came to this city
I was the golden boy of the Western world.
My little bucolics opened all doors.
Philadelphus bought my tongue.
Now I lose faith in my Doric,
Imitate Apollonius in fun,
Why can't I remember Sicily.
I am just one among many
Too old now to suffer Daphnis' fate.
I sold out for the easy life.
I write nothing now that's worth a damn.
And these pretty Egyptian boys
They don't want to know.
I would be back home again.
But Heiro has no welcome.
The best of me was on the islands.
Forgive me Nicias but that is true.
The walk on Cos when we never wanted to stop talking
And crossed half the island
Only to retrace our steps.
The streams of Sicily sparkling,
Grape-clusters on the vine.
I grew up to the Muses,
Singing contests across valleys,
Cattle queuing up for milking,
Sheep and goats.
The real presence of an altar by a pool,
Libations and the sacrifice.
Simple country concerns.
Unending classification is not my forte,
I am the poet of the everyday.
Harmony of living in Nature
Friendly to the gods.
I must return to my roots.
Sniff out the smells. Soak in the scent.
Seek hilly landscapes and green fields.
I advertise the little local songs,
Spread them half across the world.
That is where immortality lies.
To occupy your earth and people it real
As if it had always been there.
One among many I made the word-hoard
The after-time does not appeal.
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