DELPHI'S MAGIC

Note:  Almost every time I visit Greece I make a pilgrimage to Delphi.  But this poem is written about my very first visit there, when I spent the night on the mountainside with a friend.  Delphi is one of the most sacred places on Earth and the ancient Greeks actually considered it the 'navel of the earth', with a carved navel stone to symbolize this.

The Temple of Apollo, Delphi

Delphi's Magic

To Kos

I remember how you stole

pomegranates from a tree
and put them on the stone ledge
with the grapes,
sweet grapes from Delphi’s vines.

We stumbled down

Parnassus’ rocky slope
clambered over
shrubs and granite
to find a place to sleep
beneath the stars.
and laid among the holly oaks.

Silver lights winked

from the edge of the distant sea
We would not know til morning
that we had made our bed
on the chasm’s edge.

In night’s chill

we warmed each other
The full moon shone on us
We watched meteors
shower golden trails
across the heavens.

We felt the presence of the gods
understood the mystery
that brings men to this
Sacred shrine.

I keep these memories

forever in my heart
And every trip I make
to Delphi
I remember you,
and the full moon,
and how we were enchanted
by Delphi’s magic.                              

W. Ruth Kozak

Delphi, Greece  1982

THE GHOSTS OF VIRONOS STREET

This is another poem in my collection "Songs for Erato".  Vironos Street, in Athens Plaka, is named for Lord Byron who used to stay at a small monastary where the Lysikratis monument is at a corner we called "The Dirty Corner" because of the dust from excavations.

#14 Vironos Street, Plaka

THE GHOSTS OF VIRONOS STREET 

 I walk past #14 Vironos,

touch the gate

recall my life there:

Kyria Dina’s scarlet geraniums

The little spitaki in the courtyard

occupied by writers, artists,

Robbie sipping krasi

expounding on his life

as an Argentine exile

Roberto Hallberg (Robbie)

 At the Dirty Corner

( named because of the dust of the excavation)

the tripod monument of Lysikratis,

won by a chorus at the Dionysus Theatre.

This was ancient Athen’s theatre district.

Poets lived here: Byron, Shelly…

(Vironos is Byron’s Street).

Lysikratis Monument, next to the monastary where Bryon used to visit.

Once these tables at the milk shop

were crowded with friends

sharing wine and stories.

We lived the Greek zoe,

bared our passions to the passersby.

Artists, mad poets,

writers, scholars,

expats and locals.

So much flotsam tossed on

Aegean shores.

Tales were told,

Dreams shared.

Dramas enacted on this street stage.

Relationships began and ended here.

Once I threw a wine glass at Mikalis.

Missed.

On winter nights

we sat inside the milk shop

huddled around a heater

sipping Metaxa brandy.

the Katherine Hepburn of the Corner

her maniac Canadian boyfriend,

Mary Rogers, the faded debutante,

with a bottle of vodka in her handbag

an entourage of toy-boys in tow.

my soul-brother, Robbie,

telling stories about

his beloved Buenos Aires.

We shared our lives

on that Corner,

knew each other’s secrets and

sorrows.

Now the milk shop is a ritzy café-bar

the dust of the excavations

swept away

along with the memories

Old friends have disappeared,

Left for other places.

Some taken too soon.

Yet their presence

lingers still.

Do the tourists who sit here

sipping frappe and wine

know the Corner’s history?

Can they feel the presence

of the ghosts ?

Last night as I walked,

out of Vironos Street

across the Areopagitou

I saw him,

walking in his slow amble

toward the Dirty Corner.

I recognized

his slender frame,

long grey pony-tail and beard.

Robbie looked up,

caught my tear-filled eyes.

I heard him say

in his mischievous way,

“Misbehave!”

Then, like a shadow,

he was gone.

 So many memories

on that little corner of Plaka.

Yes, the ghosts are there

I see them,

hear their laughter 

as I pass by.

The "Dirty Corner" (now posh and expensive!)



(note: This summer when I passed by #14 Vironos and stopped to touch the gate and peer inside as I always do, the whole front was covered by an iron sheet with a bolted door, sealing all the ghosts inside!)

ODE TO THE YOUNG KOUROI

Kouros (pl: Kouroi):  a representation of male youths which first appeared in the Archaic period in Greece.  It was used to represent the god Apollo and typically used as a memorial for victors in the Games.

Kouros, museum at Samos

ODE TO THE YOUNG KOUROI

In the museum
the marble kouros
stands erect
Long locks brushing his shoulders,
eyes gazing into
an unknown future.

I see them, today’s kouroi,
standing on a street corners,
holding machine guns
in clenched fists.

Are these guns the new kamakis?
Is the broken glass they tread on
From shattered windows?
Instead of plundering hearts
in foreign ports
do arrest they roving marauders
who plunder their city?

They look young enough to be my
grandson, barely out of college
Perhaps recruited from army duties.

Is this what has become of
the young men
who once lolled in Plaka Square
chatting up tourist girls,
stealing hearts?

Do they, like their fathers,
dance like Zorbas on broken plates,
aim their golden arrows
Into the hearts of tourist girls?

Like the museum kouros
these boys face an unknown future
These beautiful
bronze-skinned kouroi
are the new
protectors of Athens

They are today's Greeks
survivors, resilient, daring,
the heroes of a new generation.

Peaceful protestors, Syntagma Square, Athens

Kouros in situ, Naxos Greece

(kamaki: a three-pronged fishing spear;  a term used for the young men who were out looking for girls in Greece)

RETURN TO EDEN (a "Poemoir")

LALA, Evvia, Greece

LALA: RETURN TO EDEN

I trudge up the familiar road to Lala,
the little mountain village
my Garden of Eden.
I used to say it wasn’t even a hamlet, just an omelet,
a cluster of stone houses,  100 people,  and 1000 sheep.
Past the lone church, up the incline that was once just a goat’s path,
I see desolate houses, shutters closed, doors boarded up.
Once there were open windows
village women  stood on balconies,
waved greetings,  “Kali mera! Good morning!”
Now when I call out
startled birds fly from rooftops.

Kyria Erasmia’s red geraniums still bloom
in clay pots on her patio
Has she gone too? 
Where are all the folk who used to
toil in the olive and citrus groves,
the old women with bent backs
who collected bundles of oregano from the mountain top,
the old men who sat on verandas sipping thick chocolate-flavored coffee?
Where are the shepherds and their shaggy flocks that
jangled up the hillsides at dawn?

On the dirt road I stand, listening…
Far away in the valley I hear a dog bark
I listen for the cackling of hens, a crowing rooster, the bleating of  goats
There is only silence.
Lala.  The name means “chattering woman”,  but where are the women

The day is beautiful, bright,

yet even the sun’s golden light does not penetrate the dismal shadow
that has cast an eerie pall over the village.
There’s not a living soul, not even an animal.
The iron gate that conceals Antonia’s courtyard is locked,
sealing all my memories inside.
I want to go inside,
walk along the familiar cobblestone path
past the stone bake-oven,
go up to the old wooden door of my spitaki.
the little house with its thick stone walls, 
shaded by the gnarled olive tree and grape arbor,
the porch where I slept under million of stars,
counted meteors and satellites in the night sky
I remember over the fireplace, 
the carved corner-stone with a Byzantine cross. 1754.
That house had been there all those years,
the roof and floor repaired,  its two rooms used as a storage place.
I whitewashed the walls, hung herbs from the rafters,
furnished it with things from Antonia’s horde.
A table, two cots, a couple of chairs, an old iron bed.
In the afternoon sun I’d  listen to the cicadas chirring,
watch emerald green scarabs alight
on the shell-pink petals of the roses.

Antonia said there was a ghost in that house
Her name was Evangelitsa
She died in the bed with the iron bedstead where I slept.
“She must look on you with a good eye,” the village women said.
Her husband, the village drunk, died
from a fall off the bridge into the ravine.
Mine had suffered a parallel fate. 
Evangelitsa and I were somehow kindred spirits.

One day a cat came. I named her Miss Kitty,
To me, she was Evangelitsa’s spirit. 
She gave birth to a litter under the bushes in the orange grove
later brought them to me, one by one,
laid them at my feet…a gift.

I want to go inside my spitaki one more time
I want to visit Erasmia in her flower garden
on the patio where the shepherds sat under the mulberry tree
Nobody is there now.  I remember the friendly banter
of the men over their glasses of krasi 
I want to sit on the  patio and chat with them, 
catch up on village gossip,
blush as they tease me when I make mistakes with my elementary Greek,
flirt secretly with Mitso while Erasmia sits knitting, pretending to be our chaperone.

One night Mitso sneaked down to visit me
We sat on the steps and giggled like teen-agers pulling a fast one on our parents.
“This is the best life,” he said. “the Zoe.”
The day I met him on the road to Karystos,
he was riding his white horse, so handsome and tanned,
That smile of his enchanted me.  
He asked me to marry him.
“Come and live in the village,” he said.
I hesitated.  Knew if I did, and it failed, I’d never be able to return again.

Now they are gone, all my shepherd friends:  Themistokles, Vassilis, Mitso
I listen for their voices,
hear only the faint, distant call of a kookovia
 and the mournful bray of a donkey.

I climb down the stony path to the old mill.
It is quiet and cool under the shade of the big plane trees. 
The waterfall makes a soothing splash
as it tumbles from a cleft in the mountainside. 

I pick a spray of myrtle, white flowers with fuzzy stamens,

dark green shiny leaves.
On the stepping stones  I cross the stream,
walk the dusty trail until I reach the hillside
 where a little chapel stands guard over Lala’s cemetery.
There, among tumbled tomb-stones and knee-high weeds,
I search for Mitso’s grave,
trace my fingers over the mossy stone to find his name
remember then, that after five years bones are dug up,
washed in oil, placed in an ossuary.
I put the myrtle wreath on the grave that now holds his sister’s bones,
keep one sprig for myself.

The Greeks say if you take a sprig of myrtle home,
it means you will return again.
There once was so much life here,  zoe.
Now it seems that the village has died.
and I know I can never return.

My last visit to Lala, where I spent several years living part time, I was disappointed to find that the village was deserted, almost as though aliens had taken everyone away.  It was a sad day for me,  a closure, ending all those happy days I had spent in my Garden of Eden.
I don't think I will ever return. What I didn't know the day I visited there, three weeks later, my friend Antonia, who had died of Parkinsons in the UBC Hospital in Vancouver, was buried in the Lala cemetary.

Reading "Return to Eden" at Poetic Justice

POETRY & PUBLICATIONS

I have been totally immersed in the poetry world the past weekends.  Two weeks ago I went to the book launch for this poetry anthology "Sudden Thunder" which has 3 of my poems in it,  all thanks to Candice James who is the poet laureate of New Westminster BC.  She and her partner published this anthology.  It was quite a thrill to read from it, then sit and sign autographs with some of the other poets whose words were published in the book. 

Reading at Hyack Square, New Westminster BC

The following weekend I was invited to read poetry at Hyack Square in New Westminster for the annual Culture Crawl.  Again, this event was organized by Candice who has become my poet mentor.
This weekend I am one of the feature readers at Poetic Justice in NW and will read from the collection I am preparing for eventual publication,  "Songs for Erato" (Tragoudia yia Erato) - poems written in or about Greece.  Thanks to all this inspiration and encouragement I even wrote a new (long) poem for the collection this week, prompted by one line in a Yannis Ritsos poem.

Til now I've not taken my poetry that seriously although I've been writing it on occasions for some years.  I have the collection "Hymns for Gods and Heroes" which was a challenge by a Greek/American friend to write a collection with an Alexander theme some years ago. It was read with accompanying flute music with two voices, a long time ago at a writer's event in Burnaby.  And my old novel (which I am reviving now that Shadow is finished) has some chapters written in Bardic verse. (Amazing how I did that!)

So here I am - the poet who didn't know it!  And it's become a fun diversion while I prepare final edits on my novel.

Meanwhile, I am writing up a storm with travel stories and getting a lot of new ones published either in EuropeUpClose, two accepted by Off Beat Travel and two more for Senior Living in early 2012.  Also attempting to catch up with blogs and regain my readership here.  It's been a very productive summer!

MY WRITER'S LIFE

Reading poetry at the Heritage Grill

It seems my writing life has taken a new turn these days.  While I am waiting to resume more edits on "Shadow of the Lion", I have been called upon to read some of my poetry.  Last weekend at the Heritage Grill in New Westminster, I read 3 poems that were published in a new anthology "Sudden Thunder" with thanks to Candice James, poet laureate of New Westminster who has become my new poet mentor.  I had not taken myself seriously as poet until Candice heard some of my work and has been encouraging me to read in public.  Not that I haven't produced or read before, but my main genre in travel and historical fiction, and poetry doesn't always 'happen' for me except unexpectedly. 

 Now I am encouraged to enlarge my collection, mainly one I am working on which will be titled "Songs for Erato" (Tragoudia yia Erato)- poems written in or about Greece.  I already have quite a few in the collection including a previously written collection "Songs for Gods and Heroes", written as 'hymns' or hymnos style when I was challenged some years ago by a Greek American poet friend to write a collection about Alexander the Great. There were written for two voices to be accompanied by music (such as a flute) and were presented at a reading some years ago at the Burnaby Art Gallery.  I will also include a couple of lyric poems from my play about Sappho, "House of the Muses", as well as some new poems I wrote the last two times I was in Greece.

I'll be reading on the street in New Westminster next Sunday and I'm one of the feature readers the following week at Poetic Justice at the Heritage Grill. 

While I am waiting to finalize the work (edits) on "Shadow" and retyping my old Celtic novel "Dragons in the Sky", I will rework some of my poems to get them ready for the collection I am hoping to eventually publish.  Who would have thought?  You know that old saying? "You're and poet and you didn't know it!"  Well, that's me.  A new way to express my thoughts.  And I'm enjoying it! Now if only I could get the Muse to co-operate!

Here's a you-tube video of me reading one of the poems: "Socrates Prison"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v​=7I6HMkp4pyc

www.youtube.com

courtesy of Candice James

A QUICK VISIT TO THE BARD'S HAUNTS & LOTS OF INSPIRATION FOR NEW TRAVEL STORIES

One of the things I love about travel are the little surprises that come along the way.  The first part of my journey this year was to visit England and Wales.  Mainly, I wanted to see my cousins in Caerphilly, and to stop by Salisbury for a quick peek at Old Sarum, in hopes it would inspire me as I begin to rework my old novel, "Dragons in the Sky". ( Old Sarum is the setting for this Iron Age Britain tale.) While there, I was lucky enough to see Avesbury and Stonehenge, thanks to the generous offer of a guide, Keith, who writes for my on-line 'zine, Travel Thru History.

Anne Hathaway's Cottage

After my visit Wales, my cousin Chris drove down from Worcester to pick me up for a short visit to his town.  The next day, we went to Warwick Castle which was another highlight of my holidays.  But one of the surprises was, on route back to his place, we passed Stratford-upon-Avon and I mentioned how I'd always wanted to see Anne Hathaway's cottage, the home of Shakespeare's future wife.  Chris, who is always obliging, said 'No problem', so we made a side trip to this historic site.

I've  been a Shakespeare fan since I was 13 and saw my first stage production of "Richard III". Up to then I only knew about Shakespeare because I'd lived in Stratford, Ontario, on the Avon River where everything in town was named for the Bard.  Nowadays, I often go to see productions of Shakespeare, especially each summer, here in Vancouver, at Bard on the Beach.

Anne Hathaway, who was destined to become Shakespeare's wife, grew up in a small village just to the west of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England.  The farmhouse where she lived in now a major tourist attraction.  She married Shakespeare in November 1582 when she was pregnant with their first child.  There was a fairly big age difference, Anne was 26 and Will was only 18.  Some historians called this a 'shotgun marriage', however it seemed that Will had planned to marry her all along although there was a story that he had another Anne in mind and was forced by Hathaway's family to marry their pregnant daughter.  Whatever the reason for their marriage, he didn't stay in Stratford for long, as he went to London to pursue his career of playwright, only returning to Stratford on occasions, although once he retired from the theatre he did return to live with her in Stratford.

A Bedroom in Anne Hathaway's House

Anne and Will had three children, Susanna who was born in 1583, and twins Hamnet and Judith born in 1583.  Anne outlived Will and when she died August 1623 at the age of 67, she was interred next to her husband in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon.

The Anne Hathaway Cottage is a picturesque little thatch-roofed house just as I'd imagined, surrounded by a lovely typical English country garden.  We were able to tour the house and I took a few photos including one of Shakespeare's courting chair.  It was a quick visit, but a nice little bonus on a trip that had been so full of wonderful sites and opportunities.

Now I'm back I have a lot of material for travel stories so while I am waiting to resume the final cuts of my novel, Shadow of the Lion, I'm trying to get caught up.  The first day back I pitched two ideas to a print magazine that were accepted and since then, I've pitched ideas to a couple of on-line travel magazines and they have also shown interest.  So now the holiday is officially over, I'll be grounded and focused on all this new writing.

Shakespeare's Courting Chair

THE END OF A BUSY WRITER'S SEASON, WITH NEW ADVENTURES BECKONING

Gulls flying over the Aegean Sea.

It's been a busy few months and now I'm ready for a rest and change of scene.  So next week I'm heading off to England, Wales and then Greece for four weeks.  It will be a reunion with cousins and friends but also a chance to explore some new territory when I go down to the Mani peninsula in the Peloponnese.

I just finished round #1 of the edits on my Shadow of the Lion manuscript.  I did the spell-checks, formatting and cut a lot of chapters and repetitious passages,  but it still need major cutting.  So I will hopefully get a couple of pairs of extra eyes looking through it while I'm away, to make suggestions on what else can be cut.  Although it wasn't too difficult a task, there are many places where I liked the writing and story and was afraid to cut just in case it would spoil the flow of the prose, or leave gaps in the story.  Someone removed from the story and writing will be better able to decide on this.  As a whole I am very happy with the novel and pleased with the writing so there wasn't much to be done in the way of revisions.  Most had been done during the work on it, when I did a lot of block editing according to notes taken at my workshop group.

This term was busy with my classes as well and I was beginning to feel a little burned out by the time I got to the end last week.  Only one goes all summer, and that's my little group at WAVES coffee shop on Monday mornings.  I have someone to spare for me while I'm away.  And in July, after my return, the school board has me scheduled for two nights of memoir classes.

Last week I was asked to present about writing travel memoirs at a travel writer's symposium, I've also been contributing new stories to www.EuropeUpClose.com  There should be three more stories coming up soon, one on St. Fagans Heritage Park in Cardiff,  one about Parga, Greece and another about the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz Germany. 

The presenter at the Travel Writer's symposium

So you see, never a dull moment in this writer's life.  I'm making an effort to catch up with my blogging too, and hope to regain some of the readership that no doubt I lost when I neglected to post here for months on end. 

I'm not working on a novel now, other than retyping my old Celtic tale "Dragons in the Sky" which I will start work on later this summer.  My plan is to write poetry this summer while I'm on holidays.  I have an idea for a poetry chap-book containing poems about Greece.  We'll see how successful this project will be as I find poetry has to just come to me, a whisper from the Muse.  So, it will be more of a summer of exploring, starting with Stonehenge and Avebury and a visit to Old Sarum on the Salisbury Plain (that is part of my research for the Dragons novel), and lot of new destinations to check out in Greece that will supply me with more travel stories for the coming year.

Stay tuned, and keep track of me on my travel blog.

photo of me by Julie Ferguson
photo of the flying gulls, by me, taken on a boat sailing from Aegina.

TO CUT OR NOT TO CUT? THAT IS THE QUESTION.

To cut or not to cut?  And what to cut?  This is the dilemma of the editing process.  I knew when I started that I had a lot of cutting ahead of me and I've been doing just that -- eliminating whole chapters and many, many paragraphs, excess words, repetitions, excessive descriptions and anything at all that seems to slow down the pace.  Still, I am only half way through the novel and I am already way too many pages over the required amount.  Part of this is because I am using a different font, double spacing instead of 1 1/2 spaces and dropping chapter beginnings down 1/3 of a page. 

The dilemma is in trying not to cut parts that are important to the story.  Some places I have left intact and will have another go-through once I'm finished this first round.  Then I intend to have other eyes peruse the work to see what they suggest.  Trouble is, I don't want to chop too much and spoil the story line.  I think historical novels need to be fairly meaty and I did a thorough job of research locations and developing characters that are realistic and believable.  So I don't want to interfere too much with this.

There have been moments when I felt a bit discouraged and wondered if the novel is as good as I thought it was.  But that is probably something all of us go through.  Then again, there are passages that are just brilliant and I can hardly even remember writing them.  Of course, those are the ones that definitely stay untouched. 

I'd love to hear from other novel writers about what they've gone through in regards to the final editing of their manuscripts.  I have Elizabeth Lyon's good book "Manuscript Makeover" which has been most helpful.  But about now I need someone to cheer me on!







Tip-toeing Thru the Tulips and Lots of Other Stuff

That's a photo of me posed in the tulip patch at Agassiz last Spring.  This year Spring is a little late so I haven't been out to see the tulips as yet.  But I've been wading through lots of other stuff, mainly writing tasks.

The editing on Shadow of the Lion is going well although I can see there'll be a couple more run-throughs before it's agent ready.  Mainly the cutting is what will be the most difficult task.  I'm chopping as much as I can for now but it's going to need more, for sure.  And that will be more difficult because it will be more of my precious words that go to the cutting room floor!

I'm also trying to catch up with travel writing and have just completed another story with two more ready to polish off this weekend.  Still a lot of ideas to work from and I have again fallen behind with blogging.

This week I had the privilege (again this year) of being part of the Human Library at Moscrop School.  This is an amazing concept born in the States because of bullying.  I think Moscrop is the only school here (or the first one) that has held this very worthwhile event.  A number of people of various life-styles are invited to participate as 'books' in the library.  My book title was "Living the Writer's Life" and "So You Want to be a Writer?"  I think next year (if they invite me) I'll add "Senior Citizen Solo Traveler".

There were all kinds of people from a woman cop, a trans-gendered person, gays, a guy living with HIV, a young man who was a swimming champ and ended up having open-heart surgery, someone with MS, a lesbian mom etc.  The school classes choose a 'book' to investigate and come to your table to chat.  They ask questions and you answer.  It's all designed to eliminate prejudices and misconceptions.
The event lasted all day from 8.30 am to 3.30 pm so it was a long day and rather tiring.  I got home just in time to head out to teach a night school class so I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day.

Then yesterday I had a tourism event which was fun although when I was heading out for it I had some misgivings and almost turned around and came home.  I have been feeling pressured and somewhat burned out lately with all the classes I teach, the hours of editing and trying to get new stuff written.  Yesterday I started out with the gym, waterfit and then a massage. After that I had a meeting with a woman about editing and publishing her book. I would have loved to stay home last night. But I went anyway and was glad I did. It was a tourism promo for Anaheim, Orange Country, California.  Lots of good snacks, endless wine and those California folk are so friendly.  I also had met a travel-writer friend of mine on the bus going there so that added to the fun.  It was held in the beautiful Seasons in the Park Restaurant in Queen Elizabeth Park, and although the weather was crappy and there wasn't a clear view of the mountains, it is still a beautiful place to be. All the cherry trees were in bloom and there were tulips and daffodils and hyacinths in the gardens making a very pretty sight in spite of the misty rain. 

Today there were more writer's events going on but I opted to stay home to do editing and  then I treated myself to lunch at a local restaurant.  Went and fetched my new passport and was thrilled to find my tax returns have been deposited in my account.  Wohoo!  Suddenly Europe seems a lot closer.