POEMS
THE KING OF ASINE
We looked all morning round the citadel
starting from the shaded side where the sea,
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TE •••
-ILIAD,
II, 560
green and without reflection, the breast of a slain peacock,
accepted us like time without a single gap.
The veins of rock descended from high above,
twisted vines, naked, many-branched, coming alive
at the touch of water, while the eye in tracing them
fought to escape the tiresome rocking,
losing strength continually.
On the sunny side, a long open beach
and the light shining diamond-like on the large walls.
No living thing remaining, the wild doves having left
and the king of Asine, whom we have been searching for two years
now,
unknown, forgotten by all, even by Homer
only one word in the Iliad and that uncertain,
thrown there like the gold burial mask.
You touched it, remember its sound? Hollow in the light
like a dry jar in the dug earth;
and the same sound in the sea with our oars.
The king of Asine a void beneath the mask
everywhere with us everywhere with us, beneath a name:
«'
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»
and
his
children statues
and his desires the fluttering of birds and the wind
in the interludes of
his
thoughts and his ships
anchored in an invisible harbor:
beneath the mask a void.
