laertes

by Michael Longley

When he found Laertes alone on the tidy terrace, hoeing
Around a vine, disreputable in his gardening duds,
Patched and grubby, leather gaiters protecting his shins
Against brambles, gloves as well, and, to cap it all,
Sure sign of his deep depression, a goatskin duncher,
Odysseus sobbed in the shade of a pear tree for his father,
So old and pathetic that all he wanted then and there
Was to kiss him and hug him and blurt out the whole story,
But the whole story is one catalogue and then another,
So he waited for images from that formal garden,
Evidence of a childhood spent traipsing after his father
And asking for everything he saw, the thirteen pear trees,
Ten apple trees, forty fig trees, the fifty rows of vines
Ripening at different times for a constant supply,
Until Laertes recognized his son and, weak at the knees,
Dizzy, flung his arms around the neck of great Odysseus,
Who drew the old man fainting to his breast and held him there
And cradled like driftwood the bones of his dwindling father.