Flashes from the Island

Two stages facing each other,
sea and house, sunlight and trees’ shadows.
And on the baked stones of the veranda
our dog facing us, staring straight
at our small two heads in the waves.
It comes back now as a flash
against forgetfulness, a support
for the floating inner self, as light
as a body letting itself
go by in the water.

The hot wind rose in the night,
a dragon’s breath in a child’s tale,
banging the clothes horse against the wall,
stony wind heavy with pregnant black earth,
its discarded entrails burning silently
soon raising on the hills yellow clouds of fires
and a heat on the bewildered cheeks
of walls and tarmac.
Seconds ticking in the afternoon,
a fan skimming the sheets,
pressing down the sky’s stupor
like sleep.

The wine came from huge metal barrels
stuck on the ground floor of an old house,
scraped stucco falling and cobwebs in the corners,
honest wine, they said, we believed them,
it was ruby red, young and just that sweet,
I sensed in the heat the tamed fire rising
under the ochre rocks and stinging grass
up into the vine leaf lulled
by the sinuous sea.

On the top of the hill overlooking the village
I came upon the cemetery by chance,
despite the heat I shivered for an instant,
for the sudden solemnity in the noon sun,
the walled square lay among the stark
green blades of the olive trees,
the low knuckled trunks, the heat
were good at submitting thoughts,
I forgot for the day the path I was looking for,
there, in the settled flash of air and bones.


And when we found the wild fennel
we would use to dress our salad lunch
the road glowed with sunlight
and the sea a few metres down was swarming
with the silent laughter of sea urchins.
I smelled the pine tree resin and the salt,
the hot, glad, perspiring pores
of earth and body ready to be reborn.



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