Για όμορφη Ειρήνη μου

---

For 30 years from 1978 until 2008 Irene and Monk visited Greece at least once each year. They had such adventures and visited so many places but still had much more left to see.

This entry in the blog is an indulgence on the part of Monk in memory of those trips from which such strong love grew.

Monk's Meanders

Για όμορφη Ειρήνη μου

It was ‘78 when we came to Greece
A man called Monk and a girl named Peace
Whose smile was warmer than the Aegean sun
And the moon and the stars her eyes outshone
With a spirit to equal the gods’ above
And a heart so tender and filled with love.

From Sappho’s island to Odysseus’ home
From the Minotaur’s lair to Atlantis we roamed
By midnight ferry and rickety bus
By caique and on goat track thick with dust
In open-top Panta mile upon mile
From mountain to coast and isle to isle

We made love beneath bright Virgo’s gaze
By the morning star and on long hot days
By stream, in orchard and olive grove
On lonely beach where few souls rove
And the love that was sown at the very start
Grew stronger each year in both our hearts

Our days would pass by as goat tracks we’d travel
To lonely bays beneath Byzantine chapel
Where in clear blue water we’d swim to cool down
And lie in the sun for our skins to turn brown
Then we’d trace our steps back in the gold evening light
Air scented with thyme only goats in sight

Back in town we’d savour the sun’s last rays
In bars by harbours our glasses we’d raise
To quench our thirst in the day’s dying heat
Then back to domatio, hotel or suite
Where her lips, her skin, her hair I’d caress
And in silk and perfume and beads she’d dress

Over meals with retsina and tsipouro strong
We’d laugh and we’d talk of the day just gone
And her beauty would shine in those dark Grecian nights
As we’d stroll hand in hand in the silver light
Such nights filled with love and fun and laughter
Still alive in my heart and my thoughts ever after

Tomatoes for breakfast plucked from the vine
With figs from the trees on our walks that we’d find
And oil that had grown from the groves all around
With bread still warm from the oven in town
Flowers on the table Peace had picked from the field
Each new day ahead with adventures we’d fill

We’d pick bunches of rigani wild in the hills
Which we’d hang in the sun for days until
We could smuggle it home for when winter’d begun
To remind us of Greece and those days in the sun
During winter’s chill nights we’d be transported back
To a rigani bush on a distant goat track

In Athina nine months to Olympic start
Monk waited and watched with dread in his heart
As beautiful Peace lay quiet and still
While the wound deep inside her began to heal
Brave Peace came back - but only on loan
‘til the day the gods called Monk’s goddess home

Five more precious years still closer we grew
As the party continued in places anew
Monk and Peace as one, now never more so
In mind and spirit still in love’s warm glow
Oft times for no reason she’d say with a smile
“Oh Monk, I’ve had such a wonderful life”

So thirty years on, our last blissful trip
O’er the wine dark sea five hours by ship
To Megisti where longtime we’d hankered to be
A tiny Greek village adrift in the sea
We’d striven to reach there some years before
To be thwarted by customs at Turkey’s shore

In the harbour we swam with the fish and the boats
Climbed mountains with views to Kaş on the coast
So many more days we thought that we’d share
Growing old together with scarcely a care
How could we have known something inside her lay
That in barely six months would take her away

If I had but a drachma for each fevered beat
Of our two hearts entwined in love’s sweet heat
A rich man I’d be but I’d forfeit all this
For just one last long lingering kiss
To hold her hand and whisper her name
To hear her call me Angel again
Would lift all the sadness and banish the pain
From that moment we’d be together again
And I’d tell her the things I’ve been aching to say
As we walk in the sunlight at the end of the day
We’d continue on upwards and never look back
Just Monk and Peace on that celestial goat track.

XXX
Haraki Bay - 22nd September 2010

---