The Sirens JAMEY HECHT 1. It is not right that Circe’s words Should enter my ears only, secret From you men who pull your hearts out At my oars, shot at, beaten brainless By the Cyclops I provoked, driven By Poseidon’s stormy hate: so, I will tell you: we will come soon To the island of the sister Sirens Standing in their flowery meadow Where about their feet lie violets, Lilies, lemongrass, teeth and fingers Of the sailors who, before us, landed On their dreamy strand for music. There lay they long repenting of it, yet From inside that music they could not Go back, and as this music built A world of towers, stairways, halls Inside their minds, their bellies cried For food until their bodies failed. So With these bolts of braided cord Must you now tie me to the ship Lashing my trunk to the olive pole Whereon our sail waits for the wind. That is not all: Circe instructs me, I must fill your ears with beeswax now Lest when our black ship slides beside Their pretty field, the sweet airs pour From their twin throats into you all To steal away your wits forever, arion 25.3 winter 2018 With all of Ithaca, children, wives, Possessions, friends, all memories of love Dissolved into their music like one wave Into the next, sailor after sailor, life Collapsing into story, persons into memory, Memory into endless dream, unspeakable. 2. Disappointing somehow, though correct About my record in the War, my kills, My wounds, my old scar from the forest. Their song is greater than my tale of pain, Their voices, feminine, more searching Than these dying ships, that chase The Pole Star on his speeding way. Most of what they sang was true: Dolon I murdered; I stole the great black ram From Polyphemus, and his eyesight; Yes, I spend my men like money. Yes I killed the stag, that fed my remaining men After several were eaten alive by giants. Mine was the scheme for the giant horse, And when I found myself an isolate, Hemmed in by the Lykian ranks, I fought my way to no man’s land Between the armies, and my name For some time vanished from my mind Though all up and down I searched for it. All this happened as the Sirens said. But then they pushed their music on, in Deeper into my heart’s ear, into the dark Below my mind, so that my blood Was poisoned and perfumed with this Mazy melody and harmony mingling. While this enthralling chord of fire Was weaving in their voices on the air 128 the sirens Twin streams of endless breath Above the meadow and the waves, I listened to the music and became a slave. I saw the arms of Eurylochos rowing, I saw beside him the others rowing along, And the island moved away, and the twin Sisters singing receded so swiftly, so Suddenly did the spell break that I heard My own voice still shouting untie me Untie me untie me though meanwhile Inside I was praying to Athena that we Get clear of that island of the two Sirens. Jamey Hecht 129 ...