On Dixie

I

My mother named me Ulysses, for Grant,
whose savagery rent my ancestors’ chains,
and so it is no wonder that my dreams
are frequented by those that knew him well —
Ulysses, wand’rer of the wine-dark sea;
resourceful was his mind, tragic his tale.
I lived there from the day that I was born
until the day my mother passed away,
somewhere between Savannah — Sherman’s prize —
and where they hanged the holy martyr John
whose body lies a-mouldering in the grave.
And there it was I grew into a man —
as my father, and his father before,
and on and on; my kin all spring from there,
whose sweat and tears have turned the dirt to mud,
whose blood has turned the mud a ruddy hue —
and old times there I cannot help recall.
One troubled night — restless, disturbed, and long —
I found myself adrift within my mind
which swirled and churned with violent turbulence.
Direction had no meaning in that place;
there up was down, there sky was one with sea,
there I was thrown, first one way then the next,
choking and flailing, blind and deaf and dumb,
for what seemed like a black eternity,
tumbling and tumbling, head o’er heels o’er head,
until at last the maelstrom of my mind
spat me out — like the shells of sunflow’r seeds
or spit from a tobacco chewer’s cheek
is spat into a bottle, or the porch —
into a place familiar yet strange.
A jagged precipice o’erlooked the sea,
which gnawed the cliffside with echoing waves.
Impossibly, a river seemed to flow
uphill, and spilled over the rocky edge,
spraying fresh water in the salty air.
And all along the riverbank there grew
such things that I had never seen at once:
both proud laurel and blooming hyacinths,
and cattails grew alongside daffodils —
which gaze at their reflections giddily —
and nightingales and sparrows fill the air;
strange fruit — wondrous to say — grows all around
as bright olives drop from magnolia trees.
And there, among the weeping willows’ shade,
there, slumped against the trunk, a weeping shade —
alone and pitiful, his face forlorn,
that man, Anchises’ son, whom Venus bore —
he sat before me, and I greeted him.

Aeneas, hail.

is what I said to him.

Hail, Ulysses, what brings you to this place?
What troubles you, who bears that cursed name?

speaking these words, Aeneas did reply,
his noble face sodden with heavy tears.
A sultry breeze enveloped him and me;
the wind was suffocating in its heat;
I struggled just to breathe the sopping air.
I spoke my troubles, saying this to him:

Aeneas, ancient father of great Rome,
who fled the burning shores of noble Troy
and tamed the savage Latins with your strength —
fierce Turnus falling at last to your sword —
I beg you for some reassuring words,
which you are known to give with peerless skill,
to soothe my soul and put my mind at ease.
For thoughts of home I cannot keep away;
they buzz unendingly within my head
like greedy flies flying ‘round carrion,
circling and darting here and there,
such are my thoughts — incessant, stubborn things.

Aeneas sighed, and said this in reply:

I wish that I could help, but I cannot,
for poor is the physician that proclaims
he heals others, but cannot heal himself.
And just the same turmoil that torments you,
this constant longing for your natal place,
torments me also, and a thousandfold.

But I, unsatisfied, said this in turn:

Then surely you, of all people, would know
how best to comfort me, and drive away
this plague of worries — swarm of cruel distress!
Surely one who has borne such heavy grief —
I shan’t recount, so dreadful were your trials —
could easily console a man as I
whose troubles are not nearly half as great.
Surely whatever remedies you’ve found
to keep from giving in to your despair
would prove more than enough to cure my ills.

Aeneas beckoned me to sit with him,
and so I did, and so he thus began:

II

When first my ships left from the beach of Troy,
I wept in sorrow at what I beheld:
nothing but fire and death — but flames and blood.
I could not bear to watch it from afar,
and yet, my eyes refused to turn away,
and so I stood transfixed, staring ahead,
as all I’d ever known was rent and burned.
Slowly, my ship rocking on rolling waves,
Troy faded from my sight, into the dark,
and eerie silence filled the inky air.
My heart was overcome with emptiness.
I’ve seen men perish many times before —
watched as the brightness flees their cloudy eyes,
and thus makes stones of what were once bright gems —
and yet, as haunting as a man’s death is,
that of a nation haunts a thousandfold.
Never had I seen horror such as that,
and never will the mem’ry leave my mind.
All that was left of Troy was what I’d saved,
salvaged from the destruction of the site:
that which I’d clenched in my war-calloused hands,
that which I’d carried on my aching back.
After some time, once I’d regained myself,
my focus shifted from what I had lost,
and I instead rejoiced at what remained —
a celebration surely bittersweet,
preferable, though, to sheer bitterness.
My son still lived, my father did as well,
the penates I’d rescued from the wreck,
my ships teemed with the Trojan refugees,
and I, a Trojan prince — of noble blood —
would lead them through the livid nebula,
and Troy would be reborn, and rise again,
and thus would I replace what I had lost.
When I arrived at Carthage, my heart swelled,
for ’twas a city fit to call my home
and so it was, for some amount of time.
But never truly, for the fickle gods
had greater plans for me — or so they said —
and so, again, with fire at my back,
I disembarked into the heartless sea.
If only it had been fit for the gods
to leave me — as I wished — to die in Troy,
fighting th’ Achaean host until the end.
If only! But the gods will have their way
with no regard for the desires of man.
Near Latium, in fertile Italy,
I put my ships to rest a final time,
and there it was at last the roots of Troy
would once again find solace in the earth.
But, thankful though I was to end my quest,
it would be the profoundest disrespect
to claim Lavinium e’er rivaled Troy.
For always, nestled deep within my heart,
the mem’ry of the home that I once knew
ached with nostalgia nursed by sudden loss.
Know, at my core, I am a Trojan prince
and I would have journeyed two hundred years,
and fought a host two thousand times as fierce
to save my home, or bring it back again.
I cannot help you, nor can I myself,
I did all that I could to turn my thoughts
away from Troy, and towards my newfound home,
but even as I did all that I could —
bringing along all that I could of it,
and pouring all my heart into the task —
the yearning for my home — my only home! —
has never left me, even to this day.
Troy lives within my heart forevermore.
I miss its well-paved streets, its lofty walls —
the great Scamander flowing all around —
and Priam, Hector, sweet Andromache,
little Scamandrius — Astyanax —
who but for Fortune would have become great,
greater than Hector, as his father wished,
and everyone and everything that burned
or else was lost during the fall of Troy;
I would name all if I but had the time,
but, even if I had a thousand tongues,
a thousand suns and moons would rise and set
before I was half-finished with them all.
This yearning grew so torturous to me,
that, once, feeling unbearably forlorn
I sought out he that drenched the shores with blood,
and who defiled the greatest Trojan prince;
I sought Achilles, son of Peleus,
for his advice, to soothe my bleeding mind.
I found him lounging in Elysium,
and so I said the following to him:

Wicked Achilles, strongest of the Greeks,
who sent so many to their early deaths,
and who offended with his boundless wrath
even the gods, so sinful were his deeds,
Achilles, who for ten years carved his way
through brave soldiers that stood in Troy’s defense,
and who, strong though he was, at last was slain,
and never lived to see her be destroyed,
Achilles, who reclines before me now —
I seek your help, your words, your company.
You spent so long away from Phthia;
did you not miss your home for those ten years?
How could you bear to fight for such a time?
Did it not call you from across the waves,
begging for your return; did you not hear?
Achilles, let me not have come in vain:
how did you push aside the thoughts of home
you surely felt, and which I do as well?

Achilles gave a sign he’d noticed me
at last, and broke his silence with these words:

III

You speak the truth, Aeneas — I admit —
I had no reason to remain in Troy,
and would that I had sooner left her shores
rather than taint them with my savagery.
I threw away there ten years of my life,
so many countrymen, my dignity,
and all for glory I never enjoyed,
for I was killed soon after seizing it.
Why did I come? Why did I stay? For what?
For Helen’s sake? For Menelaus’ wife?
Why would I fight for someone else’s bride?
What was I doing there, and for so long?
I’ve asked myself these questions many times
to no avail; no answer comes to me.
For all my strength, for all that I endured,
I earned exhaustion, I earned sleepless nights,
I earned dishonor, I earned disrespect.
All this for endless battle, ceaseless war,
no profit for my suffering, my wounds.
For all I did, that which you’ve spoken of,
I left no richer, for I never left.
Instead, I lay as dead as all the rest,
no better off than any other corpse.
And while I lived, I often dreamed of home,
of leaving Troy and living out my days
back in the comforts of my father’s work,
taking a wife, and dying old at last
peacefully, not laid low by spear or bow,
but drifting softly into death’s embrace.
It would have been an easy life for me,
and more rewarding than the one I lived.
When Briseis was stolen from my grasp,
I left the battle, slinking to my tent,
and, free at last from war’s harsh clamoring,
my mind was free to ponder as it pleased.
I realized I had no cause to stay,
and I resolved to leave behind the war,
seeking to trade my thankless misery
for comfort, to lay down my arms at last,
and revel thus in easy idleness.
My ships were ready; I was set to leave,
and there I was, three days from Phthia,
when horrid news came rushing to my tent.
For Patroclus, the dearest one to me,
had perished fighting Hector in my stead.
That truly was the moment of my death,
for what was life without him by my side?
He was a part of me, we were as one;
home was no home without his company.
Aeneas, do my words have wings for you?
Of course I yearned for home all those ten years,
but, though I was away, the presence of
dear Patroclus became a home for me.
He was my home, much more than Phthia;
I could traverse the limits of the earth,
and travel to the furthest plots of land,
where even the all-seeing sun is blind,
and still I would be home with Patroclus.
Thus, when he died, there was no home for me;
Phthia was as foreign then as Troy,
and so I sought no longer to return.
I was mistaken to e’er sail to Troy;
I was mistaken to remain, as well.
You rightly scorn me for my wickedness.
Rejoice! Know that it cost me everything.
Not long ago, I spoke to Ulysses —
who must be resting somewhere, just as I,
enjoying the peace of Elysium —
for he survived the war after I fell,
returning to his Ithaca alive.
I said:

Ulysses, man of many ways,
the sharpest mind of all the minds of Greece,
I seek your golden tongue and honeyed words.
For, unlike me, you were able to go
back to your home after the war was done.
How glorious your welcome must have been!
How jubilant and joyous your parade,
fit for a hero of the Trojan War —
and, some may claim, the greatest but for me!
How much relief your spirit must have felt
after returning from so long a trip!
I’ve turned over in my mind many times
my choice to stay and fight in Ilium.
Tell me — who saw the war come to an end —
whether all that you gained after the fall
made up for all the hardship you endured.
Was it worth it, Ulysses? Speak the truth;
Did your reward make good your suffering?

Ulysses sighed, and said this in reply:

IV

Regretfully, I cannot offer you
the solace or advice that you now seek.
Sure, I arrived back home — after some time —
but my relief was hard-fought and short-lived.
No eager welcome waited for me there,
no celebration, no hero’s parade.
In secret I returned to Ithaca
to suitors clamoring for my wife’s hand,
my kingdom in a state of disarray,
my palace tarnished by unwelcome guests.
And once the trespassers had been dispatched,
and I once more could sit upon my throne
what greeted me, but grief and sharp regret?
So long I wandered, fighting to return,
and yet when I arrived, what did I find?
That everything had changed yet stayed the same,
the same wife greeted me with love and grace,
the same son that I’d nurtured still was there,
but Time had stolen both of them from me
and left foreign perversions in their place,
for neither were as I had left them.
Both
had felt the changes of those twenty years
that I had wasted struggling to return.
Penelope was no less beautiful,
Telemachus had grown into a man
worthy of great renown, my pride, and praise,
and yet they were not whom I’d left behind,
and not for whom yearned for all those years.
And all things else had altered, just the same,
contorted by th’ intruding hands of Time.
And just as much, Time had changed me myself,
and I returned a different man than he
that left the shores of Ithaca for Troy.
For twenty years I dreamt of my return,
and yet never considered things would change
in such a way to make familiar land
entirely unfamiliar to me.
The memories I’d clung to of my home
had driven me all through my wandering;
they were my hope, my heart’s only respite,
the wind that pushed my ship across the waves.
And yet, they proved a cruelly sweet deceit,
just as the sirens’ honeyed voices’ song,
which sent so many sailors to their deaths.
For Ithaca had never lacked in faults,
yet I was blind to them when I was young,
and only with the benefit of age
was I able to see them as they were.
Thus what was once the sweetest land to me
seemed now to be made rotten by the years —
as any fruit, the sweetest most of all,
will spoil after enough time left alone.
And so I left to journey once again
and met my death at sea, among the waves
which had by then become like home for me.
Have you spoken to Hector, Achilles?
Keep your excuses — I see you have not.
I sought out Hector not too long ago
to make amends with him, as so should you.
I said:

Godlike Hector, good Priam’s son,
defender of the peerless walls of Troy,
and greatest man to don the spear and shield,
I come to you aflame with hot regret.
I never should come to Ilium.
I should have stayed, regardless of my oaths,
in Ithaca to raise my newborn son
and revel in my faithful wife’s embrace.
I see the folly of my warring ways,
and I seek your forgiveness for my acts,
which brought destruction to once-mighty Troy.
The choice has brought me naught but misery,
I envy you, who died loving your home.
Forgive me, Hector, for all that I did.

And Hector, stern as ever was in life
surprised me with how he replied in turn:

V

You need not come to me, wise Ulysses;
you did nothing that I need to forgive.
For Troy has soured to me in the time
since I died battling in her defense.
Remind me, what first brought that war about?
Was’t not the theft of Helen from the bed
of Menelaus by Paris, my kin?
This was the crime that first sent men to arms,
and brought those many ships to Trojan shores.
And how did we respond to this assault?
Did we surrender her to you at once,
apologize for what Paris had done,
and censure him for his brash kidnapping?
No, we did not.
Instead we sheltered him,
and further fought a war in his support.
Thus did the Trojans come to aid the thief,
rather than those whom he had stolen from.
Ten years I spent — ten years I now regard
with deep disgust — defending Trojan walls.
I thus enabled Paris’ burglary,
and shielded him from consequences of
his crime, which I ought have punished myself.
There was no honor in defending Troy,
and I merely delayed just punishment
brought down on her for immorality.
Where is nobility in what we did?
Where was justice, except in felling Troy?
Good that Troy was destroyed, I now see
not tragedy but righteousness in that.
Those who defended Paris — even me —
deserved what came of them, I only weep
for those who suffered, yet were innocent,
in the subsequent sack and fall of Troy.
But I cannot among them count myself,
and so to me you must not make amends,
but to those slaughtered in the aftermath.
It is with loathing I now think of Troy,
which ought live on only in infamy,
rather than as the noble foe of you.
I tried to sway Aeneas to my side
for he held Troy in very high regard.
I told him of my recent change of mind,
and why I now reviled what once I loved,
and fought until my last breath to defend.
But he rejected my words, saying this:

How far you’ve fallen Hector, in your death!
Was it not you who woke me from my dreams
and bade me salvage what I could of Troy
in order to preserve it in some way
from the assault of the fire-bearing Greeks?
Was not it you who sent me on my quest
so as to found a city far away
where Troy could be revived, to some extent?
Oh Hector, — death has warped your noble mind!
Would that your younger self could hear you now,
and punish you for your great insolence.

And so I said to Aeneas, in turn:

You fool, can you not hear I speak the truth?
You still revere that which you recognize —
surely you must, for no one could deny —
to be unjust; let go, cousin, of Troy!
Nostalgia clouds your judgment and your mind,
surrender to the true nature of things,
which your idealism cannot bear.

Enraged, Aeneas then replied to me:

How sad to see Troy’s greatest guardian
now turn his back, and leave her thus to die.
Never in all my life would I have thought
that Hector would submit to cowardice.
Hear me, Hector, and may my words have wings:
for years I traveled on the open sea,
and suffered all the while that I did,
and this idealism you reject
was what kept me alive for all that time.
I loved Troy, and I lived to see her lost,
and I miss it more than an invalid
misses the ease and careless painlessness
with which they used to breathe and walk about.
I witnessed firsthand what you only glimpsed
from your soft perch in warm Elysium.
I lost everything; all that I had left
was that which I had saved from vicious flames,
and cherished memories I held of Troy.
Do as you will, I won’t abandon it.

And saddened I replied to Aeneas:

It’s clear to me your mind will not be changed;
you’ve chosen to remain in ignorance,
and nothing that I say will sway you now.
The path you’ve chosen brings but misery,
the image that you hold of Troy is false,
and so your heart will never be content;
you cannot see things as they truly are.
You must love Troy for what it was, and not
what you imagine it to once have been.
Hate Troy or love it, I care neither way,
but either choice requires knowing it.
I love Troy more than you could ever claim —
to love requires honest reckoning;
you love not Troy, but the idea of it.
You must be critical, dear Aeneas,
until you do, your heart will not know peace —
you chase a beast that you will never catch.
Farewell Aeneas, wayward kin of mine.

Thus did I speak.
I left him where he was.
I am a Trojan, that I must admit,
that fact informs every aspect of me —
I can’t reject my own identity.
Yet, if a Trojan I am doomed to be,
then I will be a Trojan that rejects
the evils and the wickedness of Troy.
I have no more to say, wise Ulysses,
and so I say to you as well, farewell.

VI

That was what noble Hector said to me.
I urge, Achilles, you to seek him out;
you have much more to say to him than I.

Thus did wise Ulysses conclude his speech.
Aeneas, I thank you for coming here;
I hope your soul will one day find its peace.
I’ve said all that I can; it’s clear that you
have much thinking to do, as I have done.
For warriors like us, death is a gift,
for we are free to rest, and talk, and think
away from battle’s harsh cacophony,
away — at last — from strife and fear of death.
Take care, Aeneas — oh! — before you go
when you see him again — or rather, if —
tell Hector, if you would, to seek me out,
or, at the least, that I apologize.

VII

Having said this, Achilles said no more.
All that’s been told to me I’ve told to you;
you bear the burden of all that I know.
Do as you will, Ulysses, with my words,
now let us eat, before you have to go.

Aeneas, all of this having been said,
fell silent at long last, and moved to stand.
Then, from the empty air, there sprang a feast:
a massive table covered end to end
with dishes so delicious to my eyes.
There bowls were filled with olives, grapes, and wheat,
and grits, and hushpuppies, and mac and cheese,
and pitchers brimmed with wine and sweetened tea,
and also with fresh-smelling olive oil,
and plates were stacked with biscuits — honey-drenched —
and collared greens, and catfish freshly fried,
and chicken just the same, and cheese from goats,
and sweet potato pie, and syruped figs,
and so much more that it would take too long
to fully tell to you, so much was there.
And — wonderful to say! — Bacchus himself
graced us as well, jolly and terrible,
and brought with him a merrymaking host
of nymphs and satyrs drunk and drunk with glee
and raucous music filled the joyous air —
they plucked Apollo’s lyre with peerless skill
and played the banjo, and the fiddle too,
and so we drank and ate, and ate and drank,
I and Aeneas, casting off our cares,
as alligators sat by tigers’ side,
and dolphins swam with crawfish in the sea,
deer pranced about, dodging raccoons and skunks,
and gloomy Aeneas rejoiced at last,
and I rejoiced with him.
And then I woke.