Several Views of the Privacies from Which the Men of the Islands Gaze

It may be that they,
Nicos, Maro, Theodoros, Yoan,
there in the potato field,
taverna,
room looking out on gulls and the blue Aegean,
squatting beneath a eucalyptus
in a world halted by a music
that listening makes,
are absolved of Alexander and Aristophanes
and the rubble of the myths,
or not,
Stravos, Manos, Constantine
there on a terrace with palms,
donkey trail into the mountains,
faces squinting out of the golden age,
Andreqas, Spyridon,
waking on a Sunday morning
to the sun on the old town,
shadows in the voices of the woman,
hungers of the years.

There is nothing in Plato
about the whitewashed streets,
bright shutters of the balconies,
jacaranda,
the density of things,
the nerve cells firing off.

We must take into account the goats,
white cliffs,
scarecrow in the wheat field,
nuances of the doorways,
customs of the hands,

Mikis hanging the sausages,
overtaken by restless lore,
by mysteries of the tourists,

Costas sitting with his brothers
before it is too late,
himself obliquely something other
than hormones,
flashbacks in the female night,
angers old as childhood,

Stratis walking the child
through the ruins,
among the wildflowers,
near to whatever is the truth.