Do you know how I feel? Deep down?
Now that I am returning to you,
to your brown breasts, salt and olive-scented
to your pearly teeth on the mouth of the sea
But even deeper down, the clarity of the water
which mirrored the child-clarity in me:
I touched every stone and every bloom creeping
out from among their rough faces, in some wall
at the edge of a garden somewhere in the folds
of your dress; I did not need its history.
I named the dirt, a certain tree;
I knew the abalones and the jellyfish knew me
I breathed your air and drank your wine
I danced a dance of the soul with you.
I an exile of thirty years, will you recognize me?
As I roam always, always lonely, on the shoulder of a road
I did not pick out to travel,
will you know me, a woman covered with the dust of others?
did you know I left unwillingly?
The rose-water light of a summer night
ancient Athenian stone ladies caught forever
reflecting light
like the inside of a white shell
retsina on the Plaka
my sister there
and me
home.
So why do I weep, now, that I am returning?
It is seeing the fingers of God stirring the water
and not being able to get into it because
I am now lame, the free child I was is lost
my heart has been entangled, twisted so often: but at least,
I am weeping.
I am not hard, I hope, too hard, and I will touch
your walls, your flowers...may I be able to float
once again, in your ambrosia depths, and just be
in a horizontal minute of life
my sister there
and me
home, like
Home.
