Poem: Sailing To Naxos, or, The Vortex

Saling through the poly-blue Aegean
On a hot day in a steamy haze,
Our ship makes a wide looping turn
A few kilometers off
The white house-dappled shore
Of Naxos, parked in the sea
Like a gem in a finding,
The houses and villas
Strung along the shore
And two layers above
Like a three strand pearl necklace
On the stout and broad neck of a Cyclops,
Waiting to leap from the sea,
Grab our boat from the water
And use the ship to beat the sea
Into a churning and foaming
Soup of blue whirlpools and funnels
That suck everything in sight
Into a sapphire blue vortex
With the water cooling each meter
As it swirls down and cascades
Into Neptune's drain and picks up speed
As it descends into the dark
And lonely bottom of the sea.

July 13, 2008, on the Aegean and Naxos
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