AEGEAN SUNSET

 

The Zenith

Sunlight shimmers on swelling wavelets
Down through to the sand-bed below
Where it pulses like sparkling veins
Deep in the high life;
And we are in our element:
Swimming with glinting sardines and distant sails
Whilst bodies brown on rocks and beaches
Where cicadas whirr continuously in the green cliff
As they have since time began,
On this island
To which we have now returned.

The Blueness

Pure azure
By late afternoon,
The blueness has emerged
Infinitetisimally:
A slow water-colour evolving
In the faraway hills of the bay.
Greens, browns and yellows
Of trees, soil and beach
Coalesce in tones of blue,
Dissolving down from the sky,
Rising up from the sea.
The sun, still high, fringes the horizon
With a brilliance about to send bright scintillas
Sailing towards us.

The Shimmering

Now the sky, hills and sea merge
Into the blueness,
And a glittering spire of sunlight
Advances on the lambent water,
Flashing instants and breaking on the shore at our feet
Like seconds in the golden grains of ancient time.

The Dazzling

Down through the ages,
Romans, Turks and Venetians
Have watched this same shimmering
That we see now,
Turn to dazzle
On the sea between these shores,
And the point of this spire
That touches our toes
Now, in this lazy, hazy present
Touched others long past:
Always the same and always different,
Now and then,
Here and gone,
Always one.

The Afterglow

Molten gold,
The sun sinks to the crest of distant hills
And the moon rises silver behind us.
The last of the dazzling draws us in
To slip like snakes
Into the liquid silk of still sea.
We silhouette our way
Far out,
Into the twinkling heart of the dazzle
As the sun, its spire built,
Burns down behind the blue hills
Where a small, solitary cloud darkens and dispels.
In the afterglow burnishing the sea,
An aurora appears
From great unseen lanterns of gentle gods,
Briefly dawning the dusk,
And we glide back
To our deserted beach,
Naked and new
In the moonlit night.


c. 2005 IGR
 

We'd been to the Greek island of Skiathos several times and I'd wanted
to write something about how the light changed over the course of an afternoon,
viewed from our favourite beach.

Eventually I managed to sketch out a few notes on the inside covers of my paperback
copy of William Peter Blatty's novel, 'The Exorcist' - a sort of dark, gothic counterpoint
to the the brilliant Skiathos sunshine.

Back in the autumn chill of Leicester, the poem finally came together. I took the photo of Lisa
silhouetted against the sunset on the actual beach.