Family Knows Best

----

i realize now
that your greatest gifts to me
are the words I don't want to hear
and your willingness
to say them

----

Odysseus

---

i've always been fascinated
by old fisherman's tales
but it's not the myths of monsters,
or heroes, that haunt me.

It's the stories
of those who heard
the siren's call
and chose
to stay

can you imagine that?
hearing her on the horizon
and shattering against her rocky shores
and choosing, to stay?

she waits for me
still, today
in open seas
but i refuse to go
where others
have found a way

if you look over the bow
into the choppy row
and see the way
the waves remain
always moving
forward into
a new flow, and
the promised ebb

and my own ship
steers clear
of any rocks, or
perilous shores

it has broken, already, before
and will again, this, I know

but now

i am tied firmly to my mast
i am the convinced captain of my way
i am the horizon that beats ever on
i am the shore that's never home.

---