By: James Zaferopolos
The brook bounding from rock to rock descends
The holy mountain with a tinkle, with a chortle, with
The hollow echo of a dried-up cistern on
The hillside of an empty landscape
Through that stand of pines you see,
Into the rocky bareness beyond,
And plunges suddenly over
A rocky cliff,
Into the awaiting sea
That curls beneath
Your unforgiving sun.
Is what you hear under that blazing sun
The disembodied laughter of the half-goat god
Descending through that rugged landscape
To the final silence of the boundless sea
The nervous giggle of a fearful boy,
Plunging to certain death?
Say that it is.
The holy creature stumbles
As he rushes down the rugged mountain,
And the sound of his descent bids well
To waken any man
Who has surrendered to
The quiet susurration of
The few leaves
Still remaining on
Gnarly branches of
The stubborn olive tree
That stands alone
Where, suddenly,
The gurgling stream
Of tragic laughter
From that time-doomed boy
Jumps frothing from the forest wood
Into the barren emptiness
Of rock and sandy soil,
Where it emerges from the trees,
To make its final plunge over the edge
Into the anonymity of sea's
Eternal void.
The stream—the god,
If such he truly is--
Is sure to stir the mind as
Salty sea-breeze rises
From the sheltered cove
Like fragrant incense smoke
As, in the pungent mix
Of sapand salt,
A Christian priest intones,
“May his memory
Be eternal,”
And in the fragile craft
In which your soul is moored,
You mutter, in response,
“And life to us!”
And life to us.
James Zaferopolos lives in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a retired professor of History. He was born in 1946 of a refugee Anatolian-Greek family. His father died when he was one. his mother and he came to America in 1955. With the exception of four years' military service in North Carolina and on Governors Island, New York, he has been a resident of Cleveland Ohio, ever since. He has been writing poetry since he was a boy, in Greece, but only recently has he made an effort to publish. His work has begun to appear in a number of literary journals, including an item in Cathexis Northwest.