Publisher's Synopsis
Homer, the epic poet, lays in bed as he awaits his imminent demise. He sees the Muse of Epic Poetry appear before him. The Muse allows him to become part of the world of his epic poem. "Sing no more, Muse, for the lights of Olympus have faded. The gods have fallen silent, the glowing worlds beneath them no longer in a state of becoming. Helen's beauty, the bearer of all summer likenesses, becomes a mere imprint on my poetic tongue's last spoken syllable. A once-unending river bends. Like Achilles, I feel time irrevocably shifting my life's golden stream. My life is ending. Time hurls itself toward me, distinctly sharp and clear in its mortal profusion. The arrow reaches its mark, and I feel that the demigod's hands are my own. The half-perspiring palms are intersecting lines, which then converge with smaller lines along the coarsely gleaming moisture. I sink beneath the weight of a heavy sky. A world immeasurably white now breathes the end of me, reminding me of the silent kindness of snow. My time has come. My life ebbs away into a rimless ocean, the sun above it no longer a radiant disc but a sky entire. A heaven-shaped sun filled to my mortal world's brim. The light of this sky blinds me with necessity, for it quickly departs and gives way to heavy tears of soot. The sky is now as sightless as a poetry unheard, the dim stars in it teeming with unconcern, half-jovial indifference even. My life rises beneath the blackened dome. It moves like a century's incessant yearning. Calliope appears before me, her hand gliding gently above mine. Her gaze suffuses the time-worn depths of me, the brilliance of her eyes smiling upon a heart half-darkened with dread. Death slowly descends upon me. Calliope helped me tell my tale, but now I must find the words and meaning of my life's end. I find myself wrestling with history's iron grasp, and then I see the beauty of a woman whose life's moments come together to form her matchless visage. My life ebbs out in slow rivers, but my remembering mind takes me back to the most beautiful and ageless beginnings. My senses begin to dim, and I feel unconsciousness slowly rising. But my heart still beats with the deepest of yearnings, for it allows me to feel that I am part of that glorious world. The Muse now looks deeply into my eyes. I feel my life unfolding for a second time."
