Reading 'The Odyssey'

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Reading 'The Odyssey'

 Speaking numerically, the classroom's multitude
has fractionated down a neatly linear divide, 

a chilly 50/50 severance: half convinced
they’ve pinned the Protean narrative down, 

exacted out through thoughtful force
the twisting route to home (O Rocky Ithaca!),

the others long since given up defining west from east, 
content to wax despondent that if a place exists

worth finding, the map’s somehow eluded them 
completely, selected other wanderers for guiding on. 

But I have spoken hastily. It’s a more a 50/49, 
for somewhere in the back there sits a quiet one 

with look of consternation on his bifocaled brow, 
attempting to piece together what he knows

and all remaining unfulfilled, ignorant
that he has skipped from chapter 6 to 8 

yet reading on in childish hope that answers soon
will crawl their way through mist like siren song.

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