when Odysseus, shipwrecked, gushing brine,
mounded leaves to sleep under, as when the
man of a lonely farm, burying his
torch inside black embers, so saves the seed
of fire when Poseidon rouses storms to
scatter sparks, as when fierce wind ruffles up
dry wheat chaff, scattering it here and there:
so were the raft's long timbers thrown apart;
waves flung Odysseus at this craggy shore
and then hurled him back to sea, but as when
an octopus dragged from its den has many
pebbles sticking to its suckers, so his
strong hands were skinned against these rocks, but held.
His legs cramped up; the sea had broken him.
There he lay, winded silent, gushing brine:
hardly fit to move, he crawled into the woods
and scraped together a bed of leaves, as (loop symbol)
after The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson; I wished only that the poet's as-when microcosms would scheherezade endlessly, Odysseus steeling himself with self-simile