Seeing the island of Itaki from the sea

We did not land
No Telemachus to greet us
no old blind dog to meet us
We sailed across the pewter sea to Ithaca
and stood on our ship’s deck and looked:
saw the white mist gathering faintly in the distance
saw the many islets humping out of the water
some like long-dormant dinosaurs
some small, scrub-covered, steep-sided
rimmed at the water’s edge with white rock

Saw the sea, limpid, puckered by whiffs of wind
three-dimensional patchwork of minuscule mountains
and flat-ironed in places;
Saw the black tips of distant sails
piercing the pale horizon.
Always the burning blue above.
And we sheltered in the shadow of our sails
and sipped cool water, and gazed.

So this is Ithaca, our place of home
where we were born and raised
whose dialect we speak and understand
Soon there will be immediate recognition
No need to struggle to translate idioms
from a language not our own.

Ithaca, our home, whose songs we learnt in youth
whose dances our old feet do not forget ...

Do we sing, “Oh sweet and blessed country”?
Can we drop anchor and forget ...
the battles and the scars
the cruel recriminations, voices screaming
cataracts of rage and jealousy

the daily task of weaving intricacy
unravelling each day’s work as darkness falls...

We should forget our kingdom and our crown
Let us sail on...