"Arkouda"

By Paul Campanis

We are an immortal race. It happens by being caring and being human. The earth, the sky and the light soften motives and remind us of our duties. We do not die. We pass to another story, to a new plot, become a coffee seller before the bear. I am referring to the poem, "Arkouda," bellow. Every one of us is charmed. A Greek won't make a false step. She/he serves the hamburger as if it were a steak. The bus driver is on a death mission. That is obvious, but he claims he will bring you through. The nondescript pedestrian with an assortment of bags seems lost in thought or in prayer but sees to pick up a stray coin off the street. The woman holds the child with quiet suredness. She indicates to the gods that her dream is fulfilled. She has someone to talk to. Paul, we have a Greece that sees it all and smiles, yawns and dozes in the sun. The Greece which produces the glass of cold water when you have thirst. immortal Greece, immortal girl at the bear, immortal bear, a champion to respect and remember.

It doesn't matter to the stuffed bear
He stands menacing at
Anagnostou's gounaradiko
Why obfuscate eh?
Well this is the story.
Long, boring but necessary
I go to the courthouse for nescafe
Little kid - found out a girl of
Twelve. Told me "I work
across the street." She
brings them coffee - at the bear.
Anagnostou's fur shop.
Now maybe, just maybe
Anagnostou, may he be
well - lives inside the bear
It's a big one. Room enough
for a small tv, icon, the rest.
Well, this bear now puzzles
me. Did he walk in the shop
one day to buy a fox?
Did honey do him in?
Is he cold standing there?
I can't look in his eye.
The little girl knows as I do.


The shop is gone from Rhodes. It lay across from the Muslim graveyard I used to visit. Fairly near the beach where an old hotel is being made over by an Israeli company. I went to the courthouse last year and spoke to Kuria Maria who after some fifty years still makes the coffee under the stairs in the back of the courthouse. She said the little girl married and has children now. I remember the little girl as if it were today to me. I was in the court trying to settle my mother's affairs. Troubles. The little scene in the coffee room always calmed me down. I later found out the bear would be led over the town in processions of one sort or another. He was quite famous except to me he was tied to the little girl who used to go to the bear to give them coffee.