"Proteus," by Stanley Kunitz.
At midday he rose on schedule from the flood
to stretch his limbs on the kelp-strewn shelf
of rock, where he could soak his bones
in the drippings of the sun
and watch, bemused, the monsters of the deep,
who were his sacred charge,
humping and snorting at their brutish games.
He was not envious of their rampant blood,
nor had he bargained for this keeper's role.
Their origins were buried in his past,
lost syllables in a language of forgetting.
Perhaps they were his misbegotten brood,
conceived by night in another age, but why
should he be vexed, as in his wanton prime,
by buzzing guilts and blames, that cloud of flies?
His burden was to see the future plain.
On shore, he knew, under the beetling crags
lurked bands of marauders in their painted skins,
waiting for him to lapse into a drowse,
when they would pounce upon him in repose
and pin him down, compelling him
to rip the sweating membrane from the void
and practice his excruciating art.
He was the world's supreme illusionist,
taught by necessity how to melt his cage,
slipping at will through his adversaries' grasp
by self-denial, displaying one by one
his famous repertoire of shifting forms,
from lion and serpent to fire and waterfall.
But now he was heavy in his heart, and languid,
sensing the time had come to leave his flock.
Must he prepare himself once more for the test?
He could not recollect the secret codes
that gave him access to his other lives.
Half-listening to the plashing of the oars,
a disembodied chorus from the sea,
he shut his dimming eyes
and did not stir. These were the dreaded boatmen
racing to his side, and these their hairy hands.
He heard barbaric voices crying, "Prophesy!"
At midday he rose on schedule from the flood
to stretch his limbs on the kelp-strewn shelf
of rock, where he could soak his bones
in the drippings of the sun
and watch, bemused, the monsters of the deep,
who were his sacred charge,
humping and snorting at their brutish games.
He was not envious of their rampant blood,
nor had he bargained for this keeper's role.
Their origins were buried in his past,
lost syllables in a language of forgetting.
Perhaps they were his misbegotten brood,
conceived by night in another age, but why
should he be vexed, as in his wanton prime,
by buzzing guilts and blames, that cloud of flies?
His burden was to see the future plain.
On shore, he knew, under the beetling crags
lurked bands of marauders in their painted skins,
waiting for him to lapse into a drowse,
when they would pounce upon him in repose
and pin him down, compelling him
to rip the sweating membrane from the void
and practice his excruciating art.
He was the world's supreme illusionist,
taught by necessity how to melt his cage,
slipping at will through his adversaries' grasp
by self-denial, displaying one by one
his famous repertoire of shifting forms,
from lion and serpent to fire and waterfall.
But now he was heavy in his heart, and languid,
sensing the time had come to leave his flock.
Must he prepare himself once more for the test?
He could not recollect the secret codes
that gave him access to his other lives.
Half-listening to the plashing of the oars,
a disembodied chorus from the sea,
he shut his dimming eyes
and did not stir. These were the dreaded boatmen
racing to his side, and these their hairy hands.
He heard barbaric voices crying, "Prophesy!"
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