Standing on the wharf, I familiarized myself with the fleet, its remnants, anchored forlornly in the bay, boys swimming around the hulls, the decks bone dry, hawsers trailing, a door off its hinges, the cordage so rotten a gull might topple a spar. Disgust in my mouth, I tasted the waste of life, Alcaeus’, my own, my friends’.
And love sent Atthis and me along the beach, stretching our legs, running, dashing in and out of shallows, finding periwinkles, the day even-tempered, goats nibbling at wild celery, their bells lazy, a fisherman waving at us as he cast his net, clouds over the mountain. I noticed Atthis against the luminous water, her fragile face trusting life. Her yellow ringlets in my lap, she sang to me and then, eyes shut, fingers in the sand, she seemed to steal away.
“You and Alcaeus—you are so troubled for him.”
“Because what is there left for him—and you?”
“I can’t answer you, Atthis. Time answers such questions.”
I sense my old loneliness, a loneliness that was distorted like a ship’s rib, tossed on the beach, warped because of bad luck.
“His arms have been injured, too,” Atthis said.
“They will get better, in time...” And I heard time in the receding wave and felt it in her ringlets and in her hands.
“You’re so sweet,” she said and I saw myself mirrored in her eyes. And it occurred to me that Alcaeus and I would never again be able to exchange notes, those hasty, affectionate scribbles. Would he ever again dictate his bawdy poems, lampoon dictators and brag about war? Had pen and desk become his enemies?
Many things occurred to me, there on the sand, as Atthis and I talked softly.
Sappho’s garden, terraces of roses, shrubbery and cypress,
has the ocean below: moonlit, she stands white-robed
Sappho sits down on a bench and fingers a lyre.
onight, I have returned to my poetry, for the solace and sound of my pen. Here in my library, time will be defeated for a moment, at least. The sun’s last rays stream in, so yellow, they might be made of acacia. The cooling light covers my desk and bookshelves and relinquishes its hold of my vase. A fragment clings to the amphora Alcaeus gave me long ago. Its dancing, singing men seem somehow out of focus; yet it seems I hear the flute and lyre of the ceramic players.