"And Beautiful Times We Had"*

—*Sappho, from poem #94 


We were young and not 
Yet old enough to know 

When black wolves start 
Descending 

The white mountain 
Slopes in early spring, 

It’s too late to lie 
In wait, low 

In the valley still 
Acting like sheep.

Anonymous: Lyric Mermaid On Lesbos*

Oh, how distant Aphrodite’s 
Lush, full-bodied labials are, 

While I, by loneliness wretched, 
Half-crazed and wasted, am fated 

To lie here—how long?—bemoaning 
My lot on this solitary, desolate shore. 

*from The Erotic Aegean: An Anthology Of Greek Love Poetry, Eressos, Mytilene, 1969, (trans. Saffilis Zaengmac).