Odyssey
The things which used to matter mean so little to me now,
These years saw dozens of me; each I pushed over the prow,
What matters now is not that they are sunken deep below,
What matters is the distance from within to where I go.
Each body I had picked at as a vulture’s starving beak,
To pluck at the familiar, find the lifeblood which I seek,
These dead and now decaying, there was nothing left to matter,
And I was left still grasping in the ruins of their shatter.
But what does all that matter, now that sunken is their tatter,
And the spray of furied ocean with the raining’s pitter patter
Wiped the deck of all the things that I considered great and grand,
Left me standing on the prow as sand was spilling through my hand.
And what matters of what mattered is there’s barely any left,
And what matters of that matter is the Rock from which I’m cleft.
Copyright Jesse Stiemann 2022
