The Mytilenians.

               

            Like sad mourners of the earth

            The old women, wrapped in black,

            Tramp down the dusty roads,

            Dark birds in the afternoon,

            Their faces soaked with ancient sun.

            The shimmering heat fills the olive groves

            Where the sheep gather in the shade,

            And the goats and mules hang their heads  

                                     In the tired, hazy silence.

                                     Occasionally a farmer, his head covered

                                    By a scarf or straw hat,

                                     His skin ripened like fruit,

                                    His eyes as lively as a lizard,

                                    Will trot by on a donkey, laden with figs

                                    Or hay, the produce of his parched fields.

              

                                    On the walls of the white painted houses,

                                    The lizards slide in the corner of your eye,

                                     As the swallows who sweep the warm air,

                                    Gather on the wires, chattering in the sun,

                                    Eager for change; yet caught in the circle

            Of events, once witnessed

            Through far more ancient eyes.

                                    Last night I watched the full moon rise,

            Its dark craters, lunar seas and mountains

                                    As clear to me then, as the craggy desert peaks

                                    That surround me here in Erossos,

                                    The birthplace of Sappho; "sweet-stained" Anacreon.

   

            Her spirit still haunts the olive groves

                                    And the dark green scented forests,

                                    For harmony was truly born here,

                                    And surely lives on as aesthetic truth

                                    In the delicate light of morning,

                                   When history, myth and reality, intoxicate

                                   Your senses with the very scent of nature.