Bill Wyatt

Ancestral Voices on Kos

Arrived at appartments in the early hours of morning. A meteor flew across the balcony & gone in the blink of an eye. Sky glittering with stars, Orion my neighbour. Distant hoot of an owl—

Waiting for the moon—
clouds drift by like orphans
banishing my sorrows

Up early for breakfast. Then a short walk across the main street of Tigaki, once a small fishing-village. Flamingoes winter here in small numbers. Sometimes white Storks & pelicans drop by, on their way to Northern Turkey & Eastern Europe. October, the month when the festival of Thesmophorica is celebrated. Held in honour of Demeter & only attended by women, to assure the fertility of the fields.

Back at Tigaki for the evening meal ...

Impromptu dance
to Zorba the Greek—waiters
spring into autumn

October’s full moon—
from the taverna, ‘doo-wop’
mingles with cicadas

Mosquitos a problem. After an evening of wining & dining, I’m in no fit state to combat them. Defenceless, when I retire to bed, straight into the arms of sleep & Demeter. In the morning wake up to many lovebites—

As an offering
to this floating world—my blood
accepts the mosquito

Just outside the hotel found several plants new to me. On looking them up, turned out to be Bladder Hibiscus. Pale, large, solitary flowers, yellow with dark purple centres, opening only in early morning. Native of Asia.

Just like an autumn leaf that has lived its day—
soft breeze whirls me away
after Theocritus

Theocritus, the Sicilian & bucolic poet lived on Kos for a while. He wrote one of his most ambitious poems here, the idyll knows as The Harvest Home, in which he describes the Koan countryside, with its singing linnets & larks, bees that loitered above fresh flowing streams. When “elms & black poplars make a shady place/ its green freshness roofed in by unkept leaves”

Cicadas welcome
in the evening twilight—
ancestral voices