“No...maybe a little.”
“What about Phaon?”
“He’s far at sea by this time.”
“But isn’t that bad, to be far at sea?”
“I don’t know...hush.”
I resented her pliant body and scented arms and hair: yes, at sea,
Phaon must be battling gigantic combers: his cargo might shift...his
sail might... When Atthis hugged me, I felt stifled and yet, as she
quieted and the storm continued, I was grateful I could comfort her. If
I could not have Phaon, I, at least, had someone who loved and needed
me.
Rain and wind knocked open the shutters and I rose and closed them
and dried my feet and got into bed again.
Floor tiles had chilled me.
Rain cuffed roof and sides of the house... I heard the surf growing
wilder, sloshing over rocks, climbing the lower cliffs, rising and
falling onto itself with a hiss.
I straightened my hair on my pillow, knowing I had hours to wait: I
said, you’ve seen a lot of storms, sleep. Your island isn’t in danger.
But, nothing could keep me from thinking of his boat and its struggle.
I named off members of his crew. I named their families.
Phaon’s cousin was with him—a wretched re-initiation, after those
hideous days on the raft.
I heard Anaktoria and Gyrinno talking in the next room.
I thought of the madman, living with Alcaeus, walking about with him:
I’ll make something of him, Alcaeus had said to me, the face revealing
that his madness had not left him.
Joy and exaltation are the triumphs...
today is the imminence...
even shadows have their fire...
the stars burn...
O, sea rover, fight...
The storm split roofs and hurled boats ashore, uprooting trees,
damaging walls.
Slowly, the old town pulls itself together.
Old town—you have seen many storms during your centuries. Is it true,
you let this one slip past you and sent it to sea? You should have kept
it! You can withstand battering better than a small ship! Is it true,
what the fishermen say, that many were drowned?
Men and boys go about town, picking up tiles to load their baskets.
Driftwood clutters the beach.
Men were hurling stones, grabbing them off the beach and throwing
them. I heard them hit Pittakos and saw him stagger, his flapping rags
jerking, his arm flung over his eyes. Silent, feet wide apart, he
stayed his ground.
Alcaeus, facing the sea, lidless-eyed, roared and lunged about, arms
extended, yelling:
“Kill him...kill him...let me wring his neck!”
Beside him, the madman off the raft, howled and hurled stones.
About a dozen men were circling Pittakos, most of them blabbing
defiance, closing in.
I rushed to Alcaeus and squeezed past him, to cry out... I told them
to stop, asking them to stop in the name of our island, our town.
“Get back,” Alcaeus warned.
I faced them, feeling their hate: it bubbled through me, seemed to
ooze from the sand, from the sea, from antiquity: the hates of my
ancestors, hatred of tyranny and unfairness.
No one threw: they watched me, as I walked toward Pittakos: maybe
they thought I had a stone.
“You get back,” I cried. “Go home, before they kill you, Pittakos.
Get back everyone...go home.”
Nervously folding and unfolding his robe, Pittakos backed away. A
hand went to a spot where a stone must have struck. I felt no pity but
stepped closer.
“I don’t know what caused these men to turn on you... I don’t want to
know...go home, before it’s too late.”
Without replying, he shuffled away, a sandal off.
“Is he going?” asked Alcaeus, finding me, hand on my shoulder.
“Let him go,” I said, facing the others.
Grasping Alcaeus, I forced him to walk with me, muttering to him,
seeing Thasos, dropping his stones with a guilty grin.
I wanted to forget the faces but I knew most of the men: young,
bearded faces, most of them friends of Alcaeus, some of them his
soldiers.
“Don’t lead me,” Alcaeus protested.
“You need to be led.”
“You came at the wrong time.”
“What’s to become of you?”
“Let me go,” he said.
“I’ll see you home. Here, Thasos, take his arm. Thasos, were you
mad?”
“We should have stoned him.”
“Why?”
“He quarreled with Alcaeus—spat on him.”
Alcaeus leaned on me and I sensed his weariness as if it were mine:
he was breathing hard and had to rest, stopping again and again. Behind
us, his madman wandered, his Pamphilus.
“I’m too old for this kind of horseplay, it seems.”
Thasos and I were saddened by his tragic features; we frowned; minute
wrinkles had enlarged and deepened; his hands trembled; his mouth was
open. He seemed in the past, with his men, galled, waiting: What is
memory for, I asked myself, to crucify? Shut off from the day, is this
the best memory can do?
When I sat with him at home, I said:
“What was the quarrel about?”
“First, some water.”
Thasos brought us water. The cool of his gourd helped.
“Pittakos has stolen from the city...again...I came at him with the
facts...I know the truth...many of us know.”
We remained silent a while, my hand in his.
“It’s an old truth—for us,” I said.
“Very old,” he said.
Presently, the madman entered, carrying himself stiffly, chalk faced,
chastised. Oblivious of us, appearing more normal than any time I had
seen him, he talked with Thasos, regretting the incident.
Soft-talking men, inside an inner room, brought home to me the.
innocence of our own lives, how based on impulse, how like kelp,
twisting, sinking, headed for shore, dragged to sea: we are mad, we are
sane, or between: we exert ourselves and the world seeks revenge; we
accept and earn ridicule and belittlement: we affirm ourselves and
alter our lives and the lives of others: war is such an affirmation.
Innocence? Why not call all life innocent because dependability can
not be assured. And, if life is innocent, then what is there but
compassion and patience and kindness and beauty and love?
“It would have been better if they had killed him,” Alcaeus said,
rubbing his hands over his face.
I said nothing.
“I could have him murdered,” he said.
“Alcaeus...wait...”
“Wait? How much longer must we wait?”
“He’s old.”
“Are we children?”
“He knows what’s happening.”
“No—not even yet.”
“That couldn’t be.”
I saw Pittakos by the sea, spray dampening his clothes, his mouth to
the gulls: I saw him, hand over eyes, legs spread; I heard stones
hitting him... I could take no more and saying good-bye to Alcaeus, I
walked home, eager to be alone, for now the town seemed withdrawn,
callous, incomplete, a failure. I touched a hollow in a wall and picked
a leaf and, where a street opened on the bay, looked and looked: the
sea’s salty taste acted as a philter and years of contentment and ease
surged about me, trying to reinstate themselves: my girls met me and we
went home together, sharing our innocence.
Just the other day, I dreamed of Serfo’s place, his fabrics around
me, things from Assyria, Egypt and Persia. Some of the cloth blew
against me, light as a Sudanese veil. Atthis had a length of it in her
hands, a twisted flowered piece yards long.
“I’ll make ribbons for your hair,” she said.
Alone, I sank into patterns, colors and textures. Something brushed
my cheek, a winged bull in gold on blue cotton... I saw an imperial
snake in green on white silk, a mighty roc in black on grey wool... I
heard friends asking prices, Anaktoria, Libus.
I heard mother say:
“This is the best, this one, darling, with temples and shields on it,
this blue, soft blue! Don’t you love it? Here, take it in your hands,
press it to your face.”
I saw ships and listened to their keels...sailors unloading
bales...wasn’t that a remnant on the water?
A suffusion of light envelopes the Venus de Milo,
revealing the contours and texture of her hair,
face, breasts, belly, and drapery.
Voices sing Homeric hymns.
A woman, as lovely as the Milo,
disappears in the golden light
beneath the Mediterranean.
Villa Mytilene
W
as it three years ago I met Atthis—five years ago Anaktoria? Was that
another dream? I am not sure.
Awake, I thought about my girls and now much they love me and make my
house a house of grace. I must have beauty: I must have peace: and they
are peace and beauty. I recalled how and when I had met each and loved
each one for her special qualities. Each had a place in my heart, gold
on cotton, green on white...the sea was at each meeting and at each
good-bye... I count my years but the sea has no calendar.
Sometimes I feel the sea thinks for us, its pensiveness communicates
at dawn, its meditation at night, its probity sifting through the day.
A stormy emotion—the sea. A period of tranquility—the sea. Fickleness—
the sea. I could not be happy without its communication. For all its
pervasiveness it seems on the verge of a secret: looking down through
the waves I sense it, I sense it at night, when phosphorescence steals
shoreward or when rain obliterates and there is no visible ocean, then,
still, still it communes, insinuating mystery, legends from caves,
legends stronger than any coral, barracuda and stingrays roiled under,
sinking farther and farther.
As we eat, in the dining room, Atthis prattles about her new parrot,
mimicking it.
Her glances, charming, rounded, sensual, inconclusive, ask for love.
Her mimicry, spoken somewhat under her breath, takes in the
townspeople, theatre folk, the Athenian star, Alcaeus, Gogu, the girls.
But, because it is kindly and feminine, the fun carries far.
Her eyebrows have grown to meet over her nose and the fuzzy little
bridge gives her added years. Her breasts are larger, shoulders fuller.
She could be a priestess: the face solemn, the lips pert; then laughter
ruins everything and she is simply girl, joyous life, asking for love.
Dressed in thin summer best, she pokes her neighbor with her sharp
sandal and before I can say a word a scrap follows.
As I went downstairs, I put my hand between the lion’s jaws, stubby,
mossy stone, oldest part of the house. Lingering, I watched leaves puff
down the steps. By the fountain, I absorbed water shadows, warmth
around me, an insect swimming toward a spot of sun.
A village girl brought me a bouquet of white roses, saying:
“You must let me join your hetaerae.”
She wore a twisted blue wool skirt, of darkest color, and no blouse.
Standing erect, she offered her flowers and then spun around and fled:
I could scarcely take in the clean-cut features, pointed chin, red
mouth and new breasts.
I can’t imagine who she is or where she lives but I must find her.
My working hours are longer and as I review my work I find it good:
that is a sign of maturity: maturity is the seal I strive for and yet
as I work I fear a loss of spirit: maturity is seldom daring and to be
daring is to open doors: maturity, then, is balance: is it also the
decorum people accuse me of? Parasol, tilted at just the proper angle?
Mask, worn at the right moments? As I came home yesterday from the
play, I remembered a winking mask, rather like one in my room: was that
derision?
I saw a young man on the street who startled me. Though he didn’t
glance at me, I thought I had seen him in Samnos: ax beard and sullen
mouth were the same; he had the same slouch, the same filthy clothes.
Watching him, I recalled that Samnian fellow, his pleas and questions:
“...tell nobody I’m here...but I want to know about home...tell me
the news! You see I’ve been here for three years...to escape the
war...there are three of us...we came here on a raft...tell us...”
The frenzied talk was vivid as this derelict walked down our street.
In Samnos, I had sympathized with my countryman for his voluntary
exile was no easier than an enforced exile: I drew him out and later
met his friends, all hungry for news, all in rags, living from hand to
mouth, scared. It was their fear that worried me and I urged them to
make friends and forget the past, to marry and begin life in Samnos. I
arranged contacts for them...
But, was this one of them sneaking along, hoping for luck? Pittakos,
the wise, the clement, would have him lashed to death by nightfall, if
someone discovered him. My pledge of secrecy is a pledge I’ll keep. As
I sailed home from Samnos, I thought of these men and was proud of
their folly.
Roses are in bloom on the hills and violets are in flower around my
house. Kleis will be married soon, so I am doing things wrong. I try to
tell myself this is her happiest time and struggle to write a poem for
her wedding. Her natural gaiety is infectious and yet, and yet...
We will have quite a ceremony, Libus, Alcaeus, Gogu, Nanno, Helen, my
girls, sailors, half the town, Pittakos and rogues...Rhodopis and
Charaxos...no, harshness is not in keeping with a wedding.
I can hear the male chorus.
I hear the surf...
Below us, the ocean eats at its rocks, above us lie the hills, around
us stir the branches of the olives.
Peace: sacred grove, we dedicate these two: give them luck: a light
will fall: the chorus will resume: a wreath will be hung.
Shall I play my harp?
Who is the god of illusion? Love? How is he to be kept alive through
many years and many disappointments?
I shall try to help. Song has that gift, a gift nothing else has: to
give the lost or hold it in suspension.
I feel utterly ridiculous, the greatest hypocrite: that is how it
seems as I urge Alcaeus to curb his resentment for Pittakos.
I have tried reason but it isn’t reason that moves Alcaeus. When he
feels my sympathy, he listens: if he conceives of us as he used to be,
his hatred subsides. Let him feel alone, he thunders, bends toward me,
drags his fingers through his beard and sputters:
“To hear you talk, I’d think you were never mistreated by this man!”
“But you know better.”
“You’re a traitor to yourself!”
“That’s not true. You want to have him killed and I say we lose
through violence. I’m no traitor to myself—or you. You can be traitor
to justice.”
“Let’s not say anything about justice, when we’re fighting tyranny.”
I recalled days with Aesop and said:
“I wish he was here, to advise us or hear our problems. I think I
know what he’d say.”
“What?”
“There’s a way out of slavery... I didn’t kill my master.”
Slavery—there are all kinds.
It is a kind of slavery to long for Phaon and another kind to
remember Aesop and another to hope. Perhaps Aesop would rebuke such
thinking and say: Slavery is not in ourselves but in the misused power
of others. Surely that is the commoner kind but I find slavery in
myself and my girls and my island and my books.
Well, here is a story Phaon told me:
“Years ago, a slave broke into a temple on a deserted island and
found lamps burning. On a rug lay a naked man, asleep. He’d been lying
there for centuries, guarded by someone, the lamps filled and the wicks
new.
“The King of Freedom, were the words on a shield beside him. His
yellow hair streamed across the rug. Above him, a mask, fastened on the
wall, spoke:
“ ‘Shut the temple...let the lamps burn...make no noise...take a hair
from his head...go.’
“The slave shut the temple, carefully.
“Years later, in prison, he bent over to examine the golden hair he
had kept and it burst into flame and became a torch which he used to
light his way to freedom.”
His flames and heat are fuel
For seaman’s muscles, his sea eyes,
Devil of laughter and devil moods,
His sinking-rising delicacy.
The initial union is relief
Of olives and cypress, breasts, birds,
Stinging and perspiration’s siege,
Roots climbing out of centuries.
Beauty, the wedding is over and I am alone with my lighted lamps and
moonlight across the sea, night’s indifference.
Beauty, Kleis was happy...many of us were happy.
After the ceremony, Pittakos approached me, shuffling, dressed as I
had never seen him dressed, in fine white clothes. His hate was gone,
that was something I saw at once: I was seeing another man. Speaking
guardedly, hands folding and unfolding his robe, he said:
“...They would have stoned me. What can I say...to make amends? You
stopped them from killing me... You...you helped me...”
I grew confused. Remembering Alcaeus’ threat, my hatred surged and I
thought: Can he expect me to rub out the past because of an accident on
my part? Can he ask such a thing?
Do you think that I have changed—that I went out of my way to save
you?
My own harshness pained me. I had seen him at a distance, during the
ceremony, and had resented his presence; as I played my harp and sang
he remained near, boggling his head.
Our sacred grove, filled with people, trees streaked with fog, was
still in my mind. I could see Kleis smiling and hear the wedding
chorus, the flutists, the barking dogs, the cries of gulls.
Glancing overhead, I noticed them, passing, gliding, saying with
their grace things I tried to say in my writing.
Pittakos turned away.
I could not say a word but stepped forward.
“...Pittakos.”
He regarded me doubtfully.
“Yes.”
Then I started to walk away.
“What can I say? I’m old... I can’t erase errors. Sappho, I... Last
night I stayed up all night...it was more than thinking: I looked at
the past. I’ve been mistaken. Though we’ve lived here, in this town, we
know only lies about each other...”
Shuffling, he made off.
All were there in the grove: Alcaeus, baffled; Libus, pale and aloof;
Anaktoria, gay; Atthis, dreaming; Kleis, my herder... We ate together,
drank, sang... The sun drank the fog and sunset ribboned the ocean.
I shall remember goats wandering through our grove, tinkling their
bells...the mask-maker carrying my harp for me...trying to sing in
toothless ecstasy...I shall remember the altar fire and wreaths of
flowers, their incense and coloring... remember, too, the farewell of
my pair, their backs and shoulders as they headed for their house on
the headland, a small place among figs and tall white poppies, their
world—not mine. I must remember it is their world. When Kleis flings
her arms around me I will rejoice. At the same time, I must accept the
fact that their marriage is their particular freedom.
May it be a satisfying freedom.
Mother’s lamp, as I write, is nearly empty: she would have liked the
wedding ceremony, the chorus singing my poem: terra-cotta lamp, do you
remember her wedding? Did you burn for her ecstasy or were you snuffed
out before the groom carried her to bed?
It wasn’t long ago I was married: how I walked, my head high, the
embodiment of innocence and grace: I thought life would be easy!
The wind puffs through my room.
The ocean whispers.
Charaxos and Rhodopis attended the wedding, staying apart with a
group of their friends, no one dressed for the occasion. Since the man
who had forcibly made love to her was there, I was disconcerted. I was
ashamed. My face burned. What could I do? Would they interfere? But
they seemed preoccupied, merely onlookers, most of them young men and
women.
When they sauntered away, I enjoyed the wedding.
Someone among them, a stranger perhaps, gazed back at me, reminding
me of Cercolas.
Cercolas, my mother, Aesop—each summons a series of images. When each
one died, I thought: How can I go on? Now my thought is: What has
replaced them? Husband, mother, friend... I am forever altered by their
absence, emptier, lonelier. I seek them in others and yet never find
them.
It matters to me how they died.
I am still troubled that Cercolas died on the battlefield. And it is
tragic that Aesop died, beaten by a mob. At least, mother died beside
me, comforted as much as human comfort is possible.
Death should not catch us unaware for then it cheats us doubly.
Surely, it is hard enough to die without dying in some tragic way. Each
of us deserves a last dignity.
Shall I tell Alcaeus that Pittakos came to me after the wedding?
I may never tell him because he will suffer more for knowing. It
seems to me telling him could accomplish little. Hard as it is, unfair
as it is, I must keep this to myself. Of course, some would disbelieve.
And if Pittakos sees fit to remain silent, he and I will be better off.
Lives will be less complicated.
Even unmolested, he has not much time ahead. We must be far-sighted
and choose a leader...
Homosexual lovers in bed,
making love in the moonlight.
The light falls on their flesh,
faces, hands, legs, their passion:
laughter and soft moans and
the ocean below the villa.
Sappho rises and ponders her body,
stands by a window, facing the Aegean.
I took my lyre and said:
Here, now, my heavenly
Tortoise shell, become
A speaking instrument.
O
ne by one, the poems have fitted into my book, so slowly time seems to
have had nothing to do with its completion. Yet, my ninth book is done.
When I had finished my sixth, I thought: this is all. When I finished
my eighth, I felt I need go no farther. Will there be a tenth? What
will make it distinctive?
Phaon lives in this book, insatiability floods everywhere: lyric by
lyric, our smoldering hearts reveal our happiness.
When I shared lines with him, he laughed at their frankness, eyes
dancing. He remembered some of them, and shot them back at me, to
tease.
I have sent selections to Solon: what will he write me? Will their
crudeness be too much for him? I think not. He has savored love.
My Egyptians are copying the book—conspirators, no doubt, mumbling
lines to each other, shaking heads. I’d like to slip into their shop as
they work, to overhear them: would I laugh or recoil? Probably I’d be
annoyed. Well, tomorrow I must go to the shop and see how they are
doing.
I have not thought of a title.
Villa Poseidon
I sought Anaktoria and together we spent the night.
In spite of her comfort, I could not get to sleep. Her arms around
me, she lay motionless.
During the afternoon, we arranged flowers, taking them from the
garden. A rainbow appeared over the bay and arm in arm we watched it,
its arc faintly reflected on the water. Her myrrh was everywhere, her
spirit too: the things she said were right: family traditions are a
part of her and she adds just enough fantasy.
For a while, we practiced archery, her shooting more accurate than
mine. A lost arrow sent us near the sea. Then games...games...what
would life be without games and laughter!
Watch the dice in her fingers!
She’s a magician of tricks and youth, my Anaktoria and, oddly enough,
I can never bring it all together; it is too effervescent, too
delightful: the moment swells over us: then, another moment, even while
we are eating together, growing sleepy together: ours is a gift that
has come from our island without men, years of femininity.
Someone sent me the doll Aesop had when he died, his Cretan doll. It
came from Adelphi; badly wrapped, I opened it in my library, laid it on
my desk, amazed to see it, startled, fingers fumbling. Someone had
wanted to be kind, but it wasn’t kindness to send it. What faded
colors, what worn cloth, how had the doll gotten this old? It had
suffered another kind of death.
With the doll in my arms, I smelled the incense of his house, dinner
on the table, fresh fruit piled before us: the broad bracelet he wore
bothered him and he shoved it higher on his arm: silent tonight, he
listened to what we had been doing during the day: he had such heart
for Alcaeus and me.
I could not keep the figure but packed it away. Its evocative
intimacy, its forlorn quality...they would serve no purpose I could
think of. I was glad Alcaeus could not see it. Yet, I felt I had
rejected Aesop.
A sweltering day was made worse when Gogu had a seizure near Serfo’s
shop. Serfo and Libus carried him inside and I found them working over
Gogu, kneeling beside him, Serfo’s slave fanning the sick man, swaying
his palm frond low, Libus’ face tense and canvas-colored. Serfo turned
his barbaric features, square-cut beard and blazing green eyes, on me,
resentful when I placed a damp sponge on Gogu’s head, when I suggested
we pull him farther away from the wall. He growled and backed off, to
care for some customers.
“Is it Gogu’s old trouble?” I asked.
Libus nodded, his hands comforting the man. When Gogu’s teeth
chattered and his head and shoulders shook, Libus restrained him, hands
on his shoulders. When he spoke to Gogu, I could detect an immediate
response. The slave brought water and poured it for Gogu and Libus got
him to drink: the frond dipping closer, rising and falling. “Libus—
Libus,” he said, and sighed, thin lashes over upturned eyes. The black
hitched his broadcloth and sighed too.
The room was windowless and cool, lit from overhead. A pigeon cooed
on the roof. For a while I sat near Libus but when Serfo offered
drinks, we went into his shop where he displayed ivory figurines on his
dusty counter, Amazons, ibis, Etruscan warriors and sacred cats, none
bigger than my hand.