slenderbeak: National Poetry DayByron in KefaloniaByron sp...

slenderbeak:

National Poetry Day

Byron in Kefalonia
Byron sp...: National Poetry Day Byron in Kefalonia Byron spent four months in Kefalonia. In1821 the Ionian islands were governed by the B...

National Poetry Day

Byron in Kefalonia

Byron spent four months in Kefalonia. In1821 the Ionian islands were governed by the British Protectorate who wanted to remain neutral in the war between Turkey and Greece. This relatively unknown verse from Byron’s journal, was written in 1823 during his four month stay on the island.  Byron came to Kefalonia to support the men who defied the 1821 decree of the British Protectorate government that denied them the right to help their fellow countrymen in their uprising against the Turkish domination of the mainland.

“The Dead have been awakened – shall I sleep?

The World’s at war with tyrants – shall I crouch?

The Harvest’s ripe – and shall I pause to reap?

I slumber not – the thorn is in my Couch –

Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear –

Its Echo in my heart.”

slenderbeak: The Season Ending

slenderbeak: The Season Ending: I visit someone in poor health. I tread on almond shells dropping from the trees as I walk up into the heart of the village. Plastic ba...

The Season Ending

I visit someone in poor health. I tread on almond shells dropping from the trees as I walk up into the heart of the village. Plastic bags tied to gateposts wait for the baker to drop in the daily bread. Brittle leaves from the abandoned vines scratch along the road. The sun beats down on the ripening pomegranates.

There is a musty smell coming from the open doorway of a storehouse that nurtures stone jars and an old leather harness from a donkey long since departed. Soapy clean clothes billow in the breeze. The tiny yellow shuttered house on the corner surrounded like a fortress by flower pots of all sizes, roses, jasmine, coral, petunias, geraniums. I pass a garden with a well, its bucket dancing on a rope pulley.

Prickly pears are thudding onto the parched plot behind my house. 

Today we have a fresh westerly wind chasing the clouds, causing a swell in the bay, no ferry today but the boats ride high.

According to Greek myth the pomegranate symbolizes the fruit of the dead and the juice springs from the blood of Adonis. They are supposed to bring prosperity, abundance and luck to all.

Persephone, goddess of the underworld, was kidnapped by Hades and taken to live in the underworld as his wife. Her mother, Demeter, goddess of harvest, went into mourning for her lost daughter and so all things green stopped growing. Zeus, biggest of all gods, couldn’t allow the earth to die so he commanded Hades to return Persephone. The fates ruled that anyone who ate or drank in the underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Persephone had no food but Hades offered her a pomegranate and she ate six seeds (the number varies according to which text you read). From then on she had to spend six months a year in the underworld. During these six months Demeter mourns and no longer gives fertility to the earth

This was the ancient Greek explanation for the seasons and I'm leaving some pomegranate seeds on my doorstep tonight just in case Adonis appears.