THE YOUNG GREEK GIRL FROM THERA  
 

She came miraculously to me when I touched her, 
My yearning for her lovely domain, as she told me 
Of great temples where the heroes gathered. 
She knelt beside me to whisper the mysteries, 
But I made her stand, and gracefully she arose 
As beautiful as a young palm on sea-swept Delos. 
How cool is the shade of a palm on that rocky islet 
Where the merciless light of the sun-god blazons, 
And lions guard the sanctuaries, the holy places. 
The Meltemi blows relentlessly over tousled waves, 
Sun-bleached rocks, tumbled ruins struggle with time, 
Revealing the sad prophecy of life. 

If I had not seen her glittering eyes, the shining almond orbs 
Fringed with delicate lashes… 

The lions that stretch to protect the sun-god's home, 
Now he has gone, do they not mourn inconsolably to the night stars? 
Desperate is their loss, for they are guardians of a dead kingdom 
Where the spirits of untold centuries, the hopes of men lie buried 
In the fabled earth, though none was allowed to die or be born there,  
To keep his island pure. 

Only warm night breezes in summer caress the rocks on Cynthus, 
Not enough to move anything except the clinging dust, 
Along the Sacred Way no footfalls of the processions, 
Or gilded palm-fronds held before the Ionians. 
Once the island floated free, but to be secure for Apollo's birth, 
Mighty Zeus fixed it with adamantine chains 
To the bottom of the sea, so it became tethered to eternity,  
Asteria, the star in the great circle of islands. 

What are you, the earth-shaker 
Against this slim-ankled, dark-eyed girl who stands before me 
With the grace of the lithe, the elegant gods? 
What are you, mere earth-shaker 
Beside this vision untouched by time, 
Against her enrobèd power? 

She who shakes me more than mountains, 
Brings sweat pouring down me, 
I could be in the long grasses dying,  
Stricken with love's fever,  
I am as fire then cold unto shivering death, 
She moves me more, strikes at the tender heart. 
Lucky is he who is with you now, 
Can hear the voice within your breast 
As if he were a god.  
Many are the things of this world  
That amaze with their single beauty, 
None more than thee. 

Love does not need Athene's perfection,  
The towering-limbed palaces where the gods lived and died, 
Temples to shining Apollo or Poseidon's deep rule, 
Nor will beseeching pipes arouse Pan or stir the Pythoness, 
All oracles are silent now. 

Love is a wingless victory that will never leave you 
And if it does leave you, it was not love. 
If your soul flies swifter than the eight winds 
Chasing the sun-path over the great oceans, 
So that sparks from the brazen axle shower you,  
You will not escape the meaning of love. 

The Treasury of Atreus did not hold more wealth, 
Nor soft Coan silks more lustre, 
Not all the great things under the skies of human destiny 
Mean anything without love that makes you equal to the gods. 
And none raised more flowers as her feet passed 
Than the young Greek girl from Thera,  
Who freely plundered my heart. 

August 13, 2000 

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