Of Beauty and Suffering: Greece, 1969–1970

On weekend trips, the roads to everywhere advertise

the colonels’ spectacle—the lies of renewal,

the concrete roadside berms stenciled

with the silhouette of a soldier’s bayonet rising

with the phoenix from fire.

Days of the junta tinge clear Hellenic sun with gloom that falls

on a horizon inside while outside the Aegean horizon glimmers

with ferries shrinking toward their destinations or growing large

as they sail from the edge of sky

to our port. Somewhere inside

students lie on makeshift gurneys, doctors secretly treating

their feet and genitals bruised and swollen like bad fruit

in open-air markets where farmers throw misshapen

and rotting produce in bins behind their stands,

hidden from view—while the perfection of Greek

figs, lemons, oranges, and peaches are on display

beneath white tents and the spectacle of suffering

is known only in whispers over mezedes and anise cookies.

We linger in our uncomfortable cane chairs and gaze out

at the conundrum of the daily in Greece—

the spectacle of beauty, the spectacle

of the sea, our birthright—voices in the waves,

the lullaby of calm when evening stands still.

The blue hour darkens. My little brothers fall asleep,

a boy in each of my parents’ arms. We walk slowly

between whitewashed walls to our pension rooms.

I lie awake as they snore. The shutters clatter drums,

wind swells a chorus, and somewhere in the village

drunken song wanders the streets, discord and melody

exquisitely laying stone by stone

such ancient and such new weight,

sharp on my collarbone.