"A Few Lines"

By Paul Campanis

    A letter from home. Middle September, back to school for the children.

    The day is sharp and clear.   My large button marigolds shine gold.  We

are a witness to the greatness of it all.  Here in Dover, MA or there in

Nisiro.  Words are a reminder of the connection between one place and the

other.  To be in a place is not to be in some other place, but with

imagination and attention we bridge the gap.  So my best place, Greece,

comes into focus.

    A witness saves.  Nothing is lost when care is rendered.  I read Seferi

so I will know what to do.  He is my Martha Stewart, my Julia Child.  He and

his his pal, Kavafi, are always fooling around with me to get me to see

stuff.  To remember the times I saw in Greece.  To think of my ancestors,

now passed.

    Seferi's energy propels me to the next shore.  I am always traveling as

a proper Greek does.  Maybe not physically a lot of the time but always my

restless mind and spirit look to excitement.  I am reminded of the dynamo,

the volcano, George Katsimbalas, the heroic one who would never tire of

taking in Greece and then would send out gobs of words amid the retsina, the

bread and olive he stuffed in his mouth.  He would talk into the early dawn

even if no-one was there.  His pals had dropped out from sheer exhaustion.

O, Giorgo, how I think of you and laugh.. Thanks to Henry Miller and his

book.  "The Colossus of Marousi."

    Anyways, Greece, I salute you this glorious day in Dover, as I am about

to hit the pavement and do my exciting life.  And I think of George Seferi

and his mission to humanize his people, me included.  He says, look I was

looking for direction as a young man and had to find my way like everyone

else.  He says this but can't leave it be as a regular bloke would.  So he

puts it into a poem, see?  That is what a witness does, you see.  He

immortalizes himself, his being so I in Dover can go out today with a jump

in my step 'cause I gut Seferi in my corner.

    I gutta go.  Got work to do.  Yiassou, my love, George, George Seferi.

See you when I get home and weary, get the supper on the table, my old body

laboring under the challenges of the day past.  See my man, is always on

duty, ready to serve  me and let me witness as it is my turn now.  He

sustains me.  The arthritis hurts less.  A lot less.  I fly over the clouds

in his words and my culture, the one that feeds me all of the time.

    A few lines.

    Ki omos eitan gluko to kuma

    opou epefta paidi ke kolymbousa

    ki akomi san eimoun palikari

    kathos epsahna skymata sta votsala

    gyrevonta rythmous

    mou mylyse o Thalassinos Geros

    "Eyo eimai o topos sou.

    Isos na myn eimai kaneis,

    alla boro na yino afto pou theleis."

 

    Wow, my goodness.  Not bad, George,  "  But all and still, the wave was

sweet, when as a child I would fall into the water and swim, and then

somehow I grew up as I was a palikari, a young stalwart, seeking patterns in

the pebbles, wondering as to rhythms, there spoke to me the Sea Old Man.

I'm your place, maybe I am no-one, but I can become that which you want."