Just as I fear it's all
bartered away:
mornings in the ground-floor flat,
corner of Zitrou and Mitseon,
olive tree at the kitchen window
wreathed in cloudy winter light;
afternoons on time-honoured sites -
Brauron, Keramikos, Eleusis -
Sundays on the sacred rock,
venerating elusive Athena,
or in the ectoplasmic ethereal
Theatre of Dionysos;
evenings mortgaged to the press
in Socrates Street, off Omonoia,
in the thrall of television
monitors and clocks;
nights with Dionysiac ghosts,
invisible presences
haunting that quarter's
streets converging on the theatre -
new-pressed wine,
a wisp of laughter -
dreams pervaded by lost dramas
restive beneath the floor
where I slept...
Just as I fear the enchantment fled,
it comes bounding back,
lean and eager, fresh,
a faithful hound from the chase,
its muzzle recognising
the hand outstretched...