Toward Some Ithaca

28 December 2025

https://poems.culturing.net/2025/12/toward-some-ithaca/

The Mother's unwanted affections could ruin
all future possibilities, tie the son to the mast
and wave him around like a flag of total and final ownership.
Wouldn't the song of Calypso be enough to set him free,
at last free? But then where should he go? Toward some Ithaca,
to be sure, though the Mother pursues through the greatest danger
to take back the loyalty and affections due only to a lover,
which she has found nowhere else. She knows not what she does,
and she will not listen to reason or (most of all)
to the dreaded word "no", which dooms her to a loneliness
she never quite cured but also cannot quite endure.
So pursue she must, to the end of her days, though this son
finds a new place to anchor, a port with no room for her
turbulent affections, with a calm that might set an example,
though if she has not learned by now, it's most likely she never will.
Is this Ithaca? Maybe. At least it resembles it well enough
to ensure no return voyage on the mothership, and that
is a victory in itself. When she does visit, we will be kind
to honor her many sacrifices, but not naive or craven.
She has needs, but so do we, and ours must be our priority
to honor the true meaning of motherhood. She has not failed,
but she has wounded and must not be given a chance to wound again.

--

Elektra, it is I, your Oedipus.
Surely we understand each other.