Ten long years of war, nine more of wandering
kept father from son, infant to man.
The younger held his tongue
while the elder was out making noise with the boys.
The son could find no words to counter
the men who spoke in his ear a father's constraints
or whispered a husband's lures to his mother.
So Telemachus gathered a crew
and sailed for word of his father.
Reports were few: hearsay and speculation;
but none would speak of the man as a son could,
and the son could not.
Rough-hewn news came from the mouth
of an old man who, in his nest or castle,
had fathered a father already:
news that Odysseus lived and was coming, still coming,
might arrive back home with Telemachus.
The father fought long away from home
and travelled long in returning,
and the son waited all his life,
till now.
Each man remains adrift until his son sets out to find him;
a man can find no voice until his father seeks to hear it.
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