I AM CALYPSO - Καλυψώ

I am Calypso

and today my jasmines

hid their hearts as he

left blamelessly my perfumed

garden, my gates of passion.

Before I rescue him,

the world shrank in stillness.

Silence was life pulsating in me,

kissing the lips of the moon,

touching my tired island.

I had wings on my heels though:

my lightness was unbearable,

unforgiven.

I remember when he drifted astride.

The lightening shattered me too,

awakening my poppies,

searing my soul,

burning desire.

(my desire)

I loved him

-my one and only god-

He never took a breath of happiness

with me, couldn’t decipher my sweetness,

my most profound sea.

Now I watch the waves

taking him to her arms again

after seven years of transcendence.

I let him go, I let him go

and I am here watching my defeat:

compassion emerging and blinding me

as my tears cover my heart with

ever-darkness and solitude.

I am Calypso

and I drank love

and I felt the delicacy

of pleasure and pain.

The sun is in my face:

Where are his hands of beauty

and delight?

Where is light?

Where is my light?

Karla Bardanza

The Greek goddess Calypso was described in Homer's Odyssey 2,800 years ago. Calypso, who lived on Ogygia, an island near Malta, was unmarried, independent, and history's first documented feminist. There she rescued the hero Odysseus from death as he drifted astride the keel of the his ship that Zeus had shattered with lightning. For seven years she kept Odysseus on her island, passionately loving him and offering to make him a god.

However, when Zeus finally ordered her to release Odysseus, she replied "Cruel folk you are, unmatched for jealousy, you gods who cannot bear to let a goddess sleep with a man, even if it is done without concealment and she has chosen him as her lawful consort." She further stated that the gods often slept with mortal women and no objection was ever raised to this behavior.

Calypso then helped Odysseus build a boat and stocked it herself with bread, water, and wine, and sent a following wind so that he would reach his home in Ithaca without difficulties. She told Odysseus that she had a righteous mind and a heart that, not being indeed of iron, had compassion. Many scholars say Calypso represents the pure, remote feminine, untouched and inaccessible, separate, distinguished and different from the world of men (or the view of the world by men).