Men Are Homeric, Women Are Ineffable Poem by Matthew Buchwald

Men are Homeric, women are ineffable.
Let Solomon or the bards hallow the woman,
Historians and heros shall judge the man,
The pathetic man, who wept, tearing out his hair,
Then threatened and whined; the sorceress who charmed a knight,
The maiden who offered the fruits of her garden,
But warned against awakening love,
The man who groaned, hearing the sirens in the storm.
How I am awed when others speak of men and women!
For they are ineffable, they are Homeric.

Tell us, Solomon, why a beautiful maiden
May wander in the streets searching for her lover,
And also you, nameless bard, is there no knight
But a goddess may bring him down low?
The man sweating under a heavy burden,
The woman who trusts feeling but not logic,
Have learned as much as you; they've learned it true
Nor feeling nor instinct speak in words so true
But you are ineffable, and women are Homeric.

Look upon the woman, look upon the man,
Worship women, but know how to toil
Believing that there is no life to come,
But this one, which we dream without waking,
This one, which we walk through as in a mist,
Is neither feeling nor folly, neither
Legend, nor tragedy, fatal, nor fateful,
For we are inchoate and still evolving,
And we are wandering and winnowing our way
Performing a melody without a score:
We are Homeric, we are ineffable.