← v1n2, Fall 2002
Poetry · Volume 1, Number 2

Greece

Mountains, everywhere mountains,

young, soaring, jagged mountains,

where we are so

inconceivably old.

And sea, flashing sea

at every hairpin, glinting blue,

green, aquamarine

beyond the cliffs, lapping

the harbor, loses

its color at your feet, perfect

lens for the black anemone,

chloasma pebbles, quick, silver sardine.

And, oh, the goats! goats

in the road round the bend,

piss-luscious goats

that climb trees at our approach,

ashamed I come as a man,

not the Great God Pan,

and you, still-lovely you,

no nymph. Leathery goatherds

rolling its distant thunder,

every gnarled olive shaking its basket

of cicadas, playing, playing

the hot, incessant, carnal wind.