SANTORINI
So far, I have written
nothing of this island;
this island of Santorini.
It has rendered me
writingless.
From my window.
silence and beauty,
reach far into time.
The light changes,
each moment,
into something more beautiful,
than the moment before.
No words can tell this tale.
Saint Irene
has had her revenge;
and as I lay,
in my white bed,
in my white room,
the high arched windows,
in the white-washed wall,
and the long, bronze rods,
with soft white curtains
falling below;
form a cross.
In my slight delirium,
the room has become
a suspended world.
Outside,
the blue caldera,
shimmering in the moonlight,
revealing the place of eruption,
thrusting, far off in the distance,
up out of the silent sea,
speaks of a former violence;
destruction beyond believing,
belying the deafening stillness,
the sound of my nether wandering,
the place where all things end,
the present that stretches forever,
the island of the volcano,
the island that laughs at God.
Like moles,
the people have dug
their houses of high arched roundness
out of the sides of hills,
as they were doing,
before the last earthquake,
and the one long ago.
On the hills of Oia,
are many caves;
some white-washed and new,
some crumbling and old
with carefully carved steps,
steep, white and uneven,
smoothed from the hooves
of thousands of donkeys,
carrying loads
to the village below:
climbing five hundred steps,
to the prods of their masters.
The hills,
high and brown,
|
the houses pure white,
the doorways blue,
these are the colors of Oia.
The sun is bright,
the sea sparkles,
the jasmine is fragrant.
I look out over the sea,
the blue caldera,
and the healing begins.
I can hear the sounds
of people and music,
and barking dogs and scrappy cats
of Oia.
Although I am among them,
they are drowned
by the silence,
of the sea
Back in Athens:
I'm well enough,
to tell this tale.
One month ago,
on a full moon night,
in a jet-powered plane,
I landed in this city.
Tonight,
the moon is full,
and tomorrow,
I leave.
The sands of Santorini
have been washed from my hair,
my skin is brown,
my toenails are white:
whitewash white.
My friend, the Greek
has gone to sleep,
here in this land,
to dream a Greek dreamscape.
Much richer am I
for his sharing:
his city,
his islands,
his friends,
his dreams.
Yassus. Efheristo.
|
