Sleeplessness. Homer. The sails tight.
I have the catalogue of ships half read:
That file of cranes, long fledgling line that spread
And lifted once over Hellas, taking flight.

Like a wedge of cranes into an alien place-
The gods’ spume foaming in the princes’ hair-
Where do you sail? If Helen were not there
What would Troy matter, men of Achaean race?

The sea, and Homer-it’s love that moves all things.
To whom should I listen? Homer falls silent now
And the black sea surges toward my pillow
Like a loud declaimer, heavily thundering.

-Osip Mandelstam, translated by Robert Tracy

Plate from Berkeley Poetry Walk

More details can be found here Click for the item in The ultimate street signs site