After The Earthquake

n Athens, young and old, are waiting out this day after the night
of the quake in parks or streets; the fortunate few
fled to country villas or villages. But here, a scene
as old as human habitation in this Aegean arc
of fire-breathing volcanoes and destroying walls of water.

In Athens, the past is always present: layered and seamlessly now.
The bodies dragged from beneath these stones will have a drachma
on their tongue: the ferryman's fee. There will be frankincense
and food for the dead: pomegranates, almonds, wheat:
offerings to the Fates, appeasements to the gods.

In this Athens park, the piercing stare and solid stance of this
grandma in her shapeless dress and sturdy apron, kerchief firmly tied
beneath her chin, is no less certain
than a Cretan priestess' posed on ancient Knossan walls.

She's weighing this man's fears against her wars,
and thinking, "This is nothing."
In her wars, a hundred bodies
in the streets each day for want of food;
whole villages slaughtered in the hills.
"Courage son!" she thinks.
"We'll eat this sorrow with our bones:
the stones remember; the trees remember;
the hills remember. We will hold this in our blood,
for we are still ourselves:
the vessels of all that has gone before."