by Donald S. Yarab
Prelude: The Calling Across the Void
Hear me, O boundless halls of shadow, where no lyre sounds save memory’s echo,
where the voices of the upper world drift down like falling leaves,
carrying my name—swift-footed, godlike, breaker of men—
yet here, in this silence deeper than death’s first breath,
I am but shade calling to shade across the voiceless deep.
Not as I was in life do I summon you, O dwellers in darkness,
swift of foot upon Trojan soil, terrible in bronze and wrath,
but as one among the countless dead who wander here,
seeking not the glory that the living world still sings,
but what no song can restore, no fame redeem.
By Acheron’s dark waters, by Cocytus’ wailing stream,
if any shade remembers love, if any echo bears my grief,
come forth from asphodel’s pale meadows,
enter not Lethe’s merciful waters—
let me embrace again what I have lost, not the glory I have won.
The Encounter with Odysseus
Through the mists of the unremembering came Odysseus,
his words still honey-bright, his tongue still silver-edged:
“Achilles, no shade walks more blessed than you among the dead!
In life, you were honored as a god among mortals;
here, you are lord of the departed.
Above, the poets crown you with undying flame—
your name will never perish from the lips of men.”
But I answered him, bitter with the dust of ages:
“Do not gild my shadow, son of Laertes.
Better to be a hireling alive, a drudge to some poor man
who scratches bread from stubborn earth,
than king among these silent multitudes.
For what is glory here, where no heart beats to hear it?
Your songs reach my name but cannot touch my soul;
they raise me to eternity yet leave me hollow as wind through bone.”
The Shade of Patroclus
Then—O mercy of the pitiless dark—I thought I heard you, Patroclus,
soft as breath through withered leaves,
faint as the last note of a dying lyre string:
“They did not forget me, Achilles…
my name is bound to yours in bronze and grief.
They sang my fall beneath the walls of Troy,
they sang your wrath that shook the earth and sky.
They knew… they knew I was beloved.”
“O Patroclus,” I cried across the gulf of silence,
“O companion of my heart, O dearer than breath—
yes, they sang you, but they knew only shadows.
They praised my spear but not your steadying hand,
they heard my wrath but not our laughter in the tents,
they saw my grief but not the mornings when you woke
and the world was whole because you breathed within it.
Glory is one thing, beloved, but your nearness was another,
greater than all the songs that mortals weave.”
Then darker came your voice, like distant thunder:
“Yet had you not brooded, had you not nursed your wounded pride,
I might have lived to see another dawn.
I wore your armor, Achilles, and with it, your doom—
my blood became the price of your great wrath,
my grave the shadow of your choice.
They sing your glory, but it is built upon ashes from my pyre.”
I reached through the darkness, but my hands closed only on emptiness,
and you dissolved like mist before the merciless sun.
The Voice of Echo
Then from the depths where memory dwells eternal,
Echo came, bearing fragments of what was,
and in her broken voice I heard my mother’s prophecy,
scattered like pearls upon the wine-dark deep:
“Two fates… two fates bear you toward death’s end…
toward death’s end, my son…
If here you remain… remain fighting the sons of Troy…
brief is your life… brief… but your glory undying…
undying through all the generations of men…
If homeward you sail… you sail to Phthia’s shore…
long life awaits… awaits… but your name dies with you…
dies with you like smoke upon the wind…”
“Two roads… two roads I set before you…
before you, child of my bitter grief…
Choose… choose… but know that I will lose you…
lose you in either path you take…”
Her voice faded like waves withdrawing from a distant shore,
leaving me more orphaned than before,
knowing now the weight of what I chose,
the golden chain that binds my doom.
The Torment of the Fates
Then came the daughters of Necessity,
Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos stern,
their voices cold as iron, pitiless as winter stars:
“No thread is rewoven, son of Thetis;
what is cut by our shears remains cut.
You chose the song of men, and it is sung forever;
you chose the path of wrath, and it is walked to its end.
Dream not of other dawns, for the spindle turns not backward.
The pattern is complete, the weaving done—
you are bound within your own bright doom,
remembered by all the world, and yet undone.”
Their laughter rang like bronze on bronze,
a sound to crack the pillars of the world,
and in that cruel music I heard the truth:
I am the hero of my own destruction,
the author of my endless, empty fame.
Epilogue: The Wisdom of Shadows
So here I abide, Achilles famed beyond forgetting,
yet hollow as the caves where no wind stirs.
From Lethe’s bank to Styx’s binding waters,
the shades whisper my name with reverence,
but reverence is cold comfort to the dead.
O Patroclus, my brother, my breath made flesh—
they remember our names twined in bronze and sorrow,
but none recall the quiet mornings when you woke
and smiled, and the world was made new.
The poets crown me with eternal fire,
but eternity burns cold without you near.
Learn this, you who still draw breath beneath the sun:
choose not wrath over love, nor fame over the hand beside you.
One dawn with the beloved, one moment’s grace
when heart speaks truly unto heart,
is worth more than all the ages of song.
Better to be forgotten with love’s warmth upon you
than to blaze forever in the cold halls of memory,
alone.
Northcoast Antiquarian 