The Zuma Odyssey: 2018

Dear Mr President 

 Our friendly correspondence draws to a close. The long day wanes. The slow moon climbs and all that. 

You will recognize that fragment from Tennyson's Ulysses, whose epic voyage rather resembles yours. Except that yours seems to have been written by Homer Simpson, rather than the Greek poet whose name he bears. It may not be the deep that moans round with many voices but certainly the whole country has been moaning for a long, long time. Mourning too. Perhaps the sirens' song had deafened you. 

 The line from Tennyson's poem that is most apt for you: Push off and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows.... Just the first two words. You were getting so close to the truly greats: Uncle Bob, Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Al-Bashir and the rest. A few more years and you could have totally gutt....I mean...transformed the country. 

 According to the 'novels' that you recently referred to, you could have taught Ulysses a thing or two about Trojan horses. SARS, the NPA, Treasury, the security cluster, fell faster than Troy, we are told, as your men poured out of their wooden horses like a cockr...sorry... commando invasion. You got by Scylla and Charybdis. Or was it Zille and Charybdis? Your cyclops could have been those steely-eyed judges. Just as Ulysses did, you tried to get by them, shielded by a sheep. It almost worked until they declared that The Sheep Stops Here.

 It would be remiss of us not to mention the men and women who rowed so lustily at your command. Oblivious to the ever-present peril of imminent shipwreck. 'I number them too in the song'. 

 Now you have returned from your wanderings to find the house full of suitors. Sadly, there is no great bow to bend. You broke it and this one ends differently. It has been a long wearisome voyage. Still, as Tennyson put it: 

 Though much is taken much abides and tho We are not now that strength which in old days

 Moved Earth and heaven,

 that which we are we are; 

 One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate,

 but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 Yours in the quest for a safe harbour.

 Richard