Letter from Ithaca

What Homer Knew About Resistance

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns

driven time and again off course, once he had plundered

the hallowed heights of Troy.

Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,

many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,

fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.

But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove—

the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,

the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun

and the Sungod blotted out the day of their return.

Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,

start from where you will— sing for our time, too.

—Homer

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Dear readers and friends,

I’m on the road.

I landed in Ithaca, New York last night, where I’ll be working and teaching in the Cornell Library vault for the next two months.²

This is mud season in upstate New York, the Finger Lakes region. Cayuga Lake, upon which Ithaca is built, is the longest of the five-fingered lakes, and carved into shipwrecked depth by glaciers of the last Ice Age.

Where I’m staying, it’s 71 degrees today; yet it will snow again next Tuesday. Taking advantage of the warmth, I walked in a humid forest this morning in my pajamas behind my barn house apartment. It is a feast of bird-spotting before the trees leaf out. They can’t escape my spying!

The woodland trails, at Grayhaven Motel, Ithaca

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I am a beginner with my binoculars. I didn’t “discover birds” until a few years ago. I’d be lost without the Merlin app, but the thrill of waking up to animal life around me is timeless. The birds’ world of fucking and fighting and fleeing and preying— they are the dinosaurs who lived! It calms me to observe their frenzy and take a break from human hubris.

Oligarch chaos may be destroying the world as we know it, but other species on this planet will inherit and they don’t give one shit.

I passed through New York City on the flight to Ithaca.