Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Village Hearth in the Dead of Winter

1.

Home was where

The few dying
Embers of the olive

Were always warm
Enough to warm

The cold, weathered insoles
Of our shoes

Before we trudged
Off to school.

2.

School was where
The teacher kept warm

By thrashing us
With an olive stick

When the answers
To his questions

Were not what he wanted
To hear.

3.

The first flowers caught
Rearing their heads

Through the snow
Were always wild

Yellow crocuses in early,
Early spring.

4 comments:

  1. First rate, on so many levels. (I had a piano teacher like that once, only she didn't use an olive stick. Why does my left hand remember that more than my right?)

    I loved those little crocuses--as if wild-spirited emersions can ever really be caught. (Like I said: so many levels of meaning in this poem). Thanks, Vassilis.

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  2. Breathtaking. Vital, timeless, ancient, new. I just burned my map and threw away my compass. Damn, it’s good to be home.

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  3. Gorgeous! As if we awoke right there, in it. You could say that home is where the hearth is....

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  4. Thanks to the three of you, I now feel a little more secure as to how this poem comes across; your comments are as generous as they are inspiring--thanks again.

    ps. I think you would make a terribly poetic teaching threesome!

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