Deconstruction

Near brimming candlelit cemetery
Under a waning winter moon—

Ring of barrels emptied of lime
Next to an ashen shovel, light.

Chair Contemplating Colossus of Cyprus

In the Museum garden

Empty chairs:
the statues have returned
to the other museum.

--George Seferis, from “Sixteen Haiku”

Four days on a guided tour of Cyprus during the Christmas holiday (courtesy of the Greek Agricultural Pension Fund) were not enough to fully appreciate this beautiful and still tragically divided island, nor am I well-enough informed to know what really happened there so many years ago; still, the sight of a huge crescent and the flag of the illegal Turkish pseudo-state of "Northern Cyprus" provocatively carved on the mountainside overlooking Nicosia and the barricades dividing the city make me wonder if there will ever be a viable solution to the Cyprus problem. For those interested, you can read what the island has gone through here. Sadly, another tragic story that time is slowly but inexorably erasing.

As for the photo of the gigantic (10m!) statue of Archibishop Makarios situated about 500 meters from his grave, it’s a shame that such a beautiful spot high up in the rugged Troodos mountain range should be defaced by such a monument to bad taste. How the plastic chair found its way up here is anybody’s guess but it makes a fitting complement to the kitsch atmosphere pervading the scene.

NB: George Seferis wrote a great number of poems while on his first visit to Cyprus in 1953; published in 1955, they were included in his Collected Poems 1924-1955 as Logbook III.

NBB: Seferis' haiku should look like this:

In the Museum garden

Empty chairs:
the statues have returned
to the other museum.

On the Road to Shangri-la

Workers of the world

Go to work every day
And do not think

It’s child’s play.

Table d'hote

Limited indeed the offering
Of those who write off
More than they eschew.

Xmas in Limassol, Cyprus

In lieu of an appropriate card from Cyprus, here's a picture taken a few years ago during an exceptionally severe winter in Meligalas--where we shall return to on the 28th!

Standing One's Ground

In the end meaning may well mean many things to many,
But may it never mean not budging an inch when

Everything crawling becomes suddenly deathly still.

Clotho at Work

In this instance, my sister-in-law’s long-departed grandmother. Photo taken in the early 70s outside the back entrance to our old house. Judging from the three or four layers of clothes she’s wearing and the fact that she’s huddled in the southwest corner taking in all the sunshine she can get, it must have been a sunny winter's day. Apart from that, this picture also reminds me of how large her hands were and how effortlessly they worked at unraveling the ball of yarn and twisting it onto the spindle until she came upon a knot and had to stop to untangle it. Utterly engrossed in what she was doing, she never realized I was three feet in front of her, never once looked up, never heard the shutter click, never even saw the picture afterwards before her fate called her away.