( i )

               The orange Yamaha rasps, tears

               the silence of the streets, echoes riot,

               yammer along the shuttered walls.

               The invading centaur, dark, erect and arrogant,

               flicks his pony tail; light glints from cool shades.

               One last rasp of revs and he is gone.

               Silence resettles, dust glimmers in the air.

               Beetle-black the bent dame busies,

               sweeps the dust of Knossos from her path,

               tidies her place and pride; grants me a glance.

               Beyond the street, beyond the glimmering silence,

               beyond the plumes of swept ruin, the Aegean gleams.

               A departing jet climbs over the city, soars with a bellow,

               drags its shadow over the maze of streets.

               We leave the back ways and the tall cool walls,

               follow the aroma of roasting coffee

               and the sea odours of the fish market,

               drift with the crowds through the hot square.

                                ( ii )

               The folded paper on the chair

               hides the bleak despatches.

               White walls of the hotel are strutted

               with shadows where stairways climb

               and cut back baffling the perspectives.

               In the pool, plunge of brown skin,

               shot with gold, the dive spouts

               syllables of bright water.

               The sun burns on the sea’s tent

               melts into the deep gloom of its heart.

               The afternoon holds like a pent breath.

               Light pins each of us, vulnerable in our frailty,

               alone on the earth. We look to gather

               our shattered civilities, these quiet times,

               when the sun flares from polished cutlery,

               light through wine dances over the cloth,

               ‘Vien Malika’ eloquent from a plucked guitar,

               silhouettes of vine leaves on the floor.

               Shadows beyond this enclave

               crowd our sanctuary,

               winds from the sea press in,

               flap the corner of the tablecloth,

               bulge the canopy,

               shake the dusty leaves.

                                 ( iii )

               In the shade of a dark-leafed grove,

               out of the sun, I rest and watch

               the sea, far below, burnished shield-bright.

               Blades of thorn and thistle knife

               coronets of blue flowers,

               fiery daisies blaze and poppies bleed.

               In the silence and heat, the ass and goat

               graze the long slow golden hours away.

               An age ago farmers and shepherds toiled

               here, turned the dry soil, until the gods

               goaded them, toyed with their lives,

               whispered of glory in other lands.

               They left their dark-leafed olive groves

               to venture on the blood-dark seas;

               became heroes and warriors.

               Under the silent sky, women wept

               and waited; the ass and goat grazed

               the long dark years away.

               Now lizards bask on broken columns

               and the belled goat tolls doleful among thorns.

               Wine and song memorialize the time,

               the battle’s clamour, shouts of pain,

               deaths on foreign hills,

               flame and slaughter in the night;

               tell how Jason’s sail cracked

               and bellied in the fabling winds,

               Odysseus tricked the Trojan gate

               and Alexander bestrode the world.

                                ( iv )

               Under the brooding mountains,

               the level plain burns at noon,

               its seared skin drum for an August sun.

               Down from the hills, over the arid fields, shapes

               move through dust and stiff weeds, scrub and litter,

               weary donkeys traipse under laden panniers.

               The line of the mountains and sky merge

               into the single coherence of the dazzling sea.

               I await my departure, delayed.

               A carafe gathers light, dances and streaks

               cusped and winged patterns of Cretan sunlight,

               on the white cloth. Pegasus and Medusa bleed and die.

               Droplet, flame and nebulae, Hubble-views of earlier aeons,

               shapes in the dance of glowing flames

               views dreamed upon, now and once upon a childhood,

               the vast dispersions of darkness,

               the flare of gaseous masses

               now convolute and billow over the table.

               There tomorrow is as meaningless as yesterday,

               words without use where only now is,

               where sun neither rises nor sets

               and no days dawn,

               no flecks of gold and wine;

               neither morning nor dusk.

               Lids melt into a drowse,

               the hum descends into a dream.

               Here is only the long exhalation of forever

               as the universe breathes.

               A book slips from a sleeper’s hand.

               Fans slowly stir the thick air.

               Strangers to each other, trapped,

               keep their space, distanced, locked-in selves

               wait despatches to our worlds of donkey-tasks,

               the chase of lives strapped to time,

               ploddings over arid plains without horizons,

               the daily task of scraping life into dry heaps.

               Chimes!

               Heads lift. Buttocks shift.

               A soft female voice intones in Greek.

               Hope flutters from its empty box,

               dozing children whimper in complaint,

               forgotten toys, litter, crusts and crumbs lay strewn.

               Burdens are shouldered and ways sought.