The hours they dwell in us, olive grain in wooden spoons

unfinished, oars left in the other life,

lost in the ocean’s lap. By the beach you listen to apparent

beginnings of waves, waters resisting

silence’s cadences, the shaving of shapes, shearing off

cavernous altercations of mountains.

As a traveler, I’m tired. Sophocles heralds an owl’s sweet,

timeless siesta. An owl is an owl is an owl.

At dusk the park, the only park, will fill with voices chatting

in an unknown tongue, as the summer wind

disperses, runs with the children by the swings as they run,

worriless, laughing after their thereafter.

The huge coastline wraps around this place. Pumice shards

the size of Cyclopes’ fists litter the shore,

towering boulders streaked an iron hue. We walk through,

imagining earthquakes, perhaps imagining

the waves’ abandonment. A metal chair is piked on the fence

of the hotel Helena. The graffiti ‘Meth’

means something different than in America. The local team

had won a soccer tournament, you say.