Eternal Greece

Once upon a time, for ages, I believed that Greece was eternal.

Today, I'm not so sure.

Ever since I left Australia in 1962, I've been in love with this country... to the point of working as a sailor on a Greek tramp steamer, and learning to communicate in Modern Greek.

For ages, I had romantic dreams about the idea of purchasing a property on the island of Tinos, in the vicinity of the ancient Roman Catholic village of Loutra, where I once wandered [evocations] among lost windmills.

Today, for terribly down-to-earth economic reasons, it has become impossible to retain any kind of romantic vision of Greece... maybe for decades to come.

Must we cry? Yes. For the moment, while Europe tries to get adjusted to the realities of the 21st century, that's about all we antiquated philhellenes can do.

August 15 in Tinos

The stark eyes of the old ladies in black, disembarking at Tinos, are fixed upon the church with the sacred icon. They will crawl on blood-stained knees up to the grail. It's the theckapende avgoustou.


It was an ordinary day, in 1965, for tourists such as us.



Tinos, today, remains my mythical backyard.
My Garden of Eden. My eternal paradise.

Dead wood from a windmill in Tinos

The wobbly weathercock of Grecian winters
will no longer indicate the pale blue meridian
from Asia to Africa.
It lies on the arid ground between rocks and snakes.
Alongside, three aged teeth in black oak
will never more bite the Etesian winds, full of salt,
during their long seasons of wild wheat
on the burning slopes of archaic Tinos.
This sacred soil once offered water and bread
to Poseidon and Amphitrite.
The Cyclades filled the sails of Ulysses and made
the warm bread rise, covered in seeds of sesame.
Old toothless windmill, memory of the Aegean.