OLIVE OIL
In Greece last week
I bought a bottle of extra virgin olive oil
Which is a bit more expensive than the
regular virgin kind
I expect that it is due to the labor involved
tying all the branches apart
So that they don’t even touch themselves
KAROLINA
Artist Laureate of Mykanos
her adopted town floats above the canvas
Windmills dance on the hills
church domes and white houses
rebound light across the narrow lanes
Ships bob on the bluest water
watched by pink pelican and faithful dog
In her pictures, handsome Greek men
work the boats and bars
Forty years from Boston town
she knows too much of these men
but the island nights get cold
Her art raised their two children
it cost a lot
But to marry one of these
patriarchetypical sons of pirates
would have cost more soul
than this artist or her art would pay
MOMMA IN MYKONOS
Marolina says, enjoy the room
my eighty two year old mother
lives on the first floor under your stairs
call on her if you need anything
Momma doesn’t understand our English
but most important that we understand
she could understand, but chooses not to
She also knows that her daughter
must rent the rooms above her head
but she will not look up
WIDOWS
Greece is a land of widows
black dresses with brooms on empty stairs
This comes from ten thousand years of wars
Greece is a land of proud and arrogant men
This comes from lives of great danger
And the supply and demands of
ten thousand years of widows
THE SEA
In two days
three hours on the friendly sea
Back and forth from Mykonos to Delos
past rocks with good seats for sirens
rocking in a cradle still rocking
since the gods were young
Feeling the wake of the island
where she floated invisible in the mists
before agreeing to dig in her feet
and challenge the jealous Hera
providing Leto a birthplace for the
ever grateful Apollo and Artemis
Feeling their blessings
MOSAICS
On Delos a floor caught my eye
with an Escher like mosaic pattern
Optical illusions of rectangles in rows
still bright after thirty centuries
Next day in a New York airport
we take our seats in the lounge
fabric covering the chairs
in exact same pattern
OWLS TO ATHENS
One does not take coals to Newcastle
or owls to Athens
But it is good to go
with an appreciation of coal and owls
Is is also permitted to leave Newcastle
with a bit of coal in one’s pocket
Or Athens with a small bronze of an owl
And memories of a questioning call
floating across the Agora
to the small cliff restaurant
Where we rest on the long climb down
from all the heights of the Acropolis
IN THE BEGINNING
Small town doctor
tired and out of sorts
resenting a 3:00 am delivery
and snapping at his helping nurse
Stands little in awe of the first born son
come to save the ranch
One wonders if the promise of a poet
would have outweighed
his desire for his bed
TASTES OF CHILDHOOD
When I was two or three
and my mother read to me
When Alice fell down the rabbit hole
I fell down the rabbit hole
Tumbling over and over in the air
the memory is still there
Ribbon candy and real candles on the tree
Christmas chocolates made at home
from a factory recipe someone
slipped to someone on a train
Taste buds still budding
tasting with my whole body
Slowly I’ve forgotten how
only love and fear can do it now
LEARNING FROM GRANDPARENTS
From my Swiss grandfather
who dreamed and grew a prairie Eden
combining Europe and High Brazil
I learned the impossible is possible
From my English grandmother
I learned that niceness is very nice
but you can leave feeling empty
except for cookies and milk
From my father’s mother
and my mother’s father
I learned that early death
is a form of theft