I recently came across my first journal of poetry,
written in my early forties. A tumultous time in my life, I kept a hand-written journal and the poems flowed. It began on a (recovery) escape~vacation to Mykonos and many other Greek islands. Unable to sail, (stuck on Mykonos by fierce winds that grounded even super tankers), I wrote to pass the time. Even then, I dated my poems, noting when & where the poem was composed. Themes were employed, that twenty years later, reappear (to my surprise) frequently, in my poems of today (by example, "The Wind of Correction"). Even then, I wrote long, way too long poems, some good and some awful ones. Judge this, one not too harshly, judge it as a first endeavor, simplistic, crude and heartfelt.
What seems to have triggered poetry to be the outlet for my emotional upset, as a father of young children, in the midst of a bitter divorce, was a Greek poet, Cavafy, that I must have stumbled on during my visit
and a particular poem he wrote in 1908. I include it the notes in shock and awe, for it unconsciously informed my "style" and seemingly, or unseemingly, still does.
The Geometery of Greece
(His Very First Poem)
~~~
the geometry of Greece
is the perfect intersection
of clear blue sky,
right-angled to azure waters,
with puffs of white clouds
to mark off distances
only
the wind is non-linear,
like feelings,
the wind,
it washes and caresses you,
envelopes and wraps you in
its totality
what it all means is this:
all that I know,
all that I love,
have, got and given,
is leaking and pouring and leaking
from the rectangular shape
what I
now know as,
now call,
my previous life
so now,
the winds of my true self
direct me on a course
that can be plotted
but one day,
one island ahead
no long range planning
on the sailing waters of Greek isles,
the wind does not permit it
the perfect line of the horizon
is not anymore a limiting
boundary
rather,
the sourcing place from which
the wind comes,
that buffets,
to and fro
throws,
carries me forward,
and ever backwards too
this horizon line
that I sail towards,
neither marks nor closes in,
it is always there,
to be sailed to,
ever anew,
to renew
~~~
August 6, 1993
Noon
the Isle of Mykonos
As Much As You Can
by C. P. Cavafy
1908
And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it
by too much contact with the world,
by too much activity and talk.
Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.
