Peter de Ville
A twenty-year-old enters Greece
Figures with cancer by dark canals
Let dampening drizzle sizzle out the soul.
Rain-hazy roofs, weeds, sleepers oily black
Where eyes squint deep in rainpool’s spit.
But in the light of Chios I was bold
And shown (the rocky hills all smashed by sun)
The glory of the world in this
Unintimate landscape.
No rain-smoothed edge on a stone never ageing,
The plasterer’s dust never leaving the whitening houses’
Permanent creases. Lines never rounded
The splintering concrete baked and unbaking.
Freedom of eye unresting on detail
Fluid as light flowing free in the landscape
Detritus adsorbing. The shadows inviting
Grass and leaves, and bottles unseen.
Yet here siestas sticky as mastika lime the soul.
Indolent as donkeys farmers ease themselves of time.
Slipping and dropping, they lift their squat-legged bodies:
“Pou pas, kirie?” Into the country you lack.
Page(s) 37
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