Odysseus Hears of the Death of Kalypso

All their songs are of one hour Before dawn, when the birds begin. I sing another. In helpless midday, at the hour Even sparrows have no heart to shrill Comes news . . . Suddenly, the unimaginable Needs imagination and finds none. Violet ocean only nothing. Smoke of thyme and of cedar, Ornate birds, nothing. Even a god who came here, Hearing a sweet voice, Would find only old fires now, Brittle in the blackened trees. She was mast and sail. She was A stillness pregnant with motion, Adorable to me as, all my life, I have hidden a cruel, secret ocean In sinews and in sleep and cowardice. She forgave me. Once, she wept for me. Our child died then, and she is with him.