Little dress, you have been to Olympia,
you have entered Apollo's shrine -
but how you are steeped in memory's colours
who but me could ever imagine,
seeing you hanging on the clothesline
drying in sunshine, limp and drab,
a shapeless rag, a pitiable thing.
Every time I launder you,
your Nile-green cotton grows more dim,
while the journey, my companion,
certain images of him
will not bleach out so easily,
but linger into frosty autumn, hoarded
against threadbare years to come.
*
Long after the mnemonic garment's
fibres fray the weave undone,
let me remember journeys
that began at dawn,
the mountain rides
through byways fresh with oleating pine;
let me recall in clear detail
Langadia, the nightingale,
that first glimpse of Olympia in spring.