Hydra, October 2010
By John L. Holgerson
The fishing boats scuttle daily
in and out of the horseshoe harbor,
wooden and fiberglass crabs,
seeking a shoal of squid or sponge.
Tourist shops are bringing in their
postcard sentry stanchions and
wobbly wood tables with multi-color
tee shirts bearing the island’s name.
Old timers stroke sweat from
bearded chins as they play
pinocle and backgammon for beer
and sausages in the old bars behind
the yacht-lined harbor front. The air
has become burdened by the thick
weight of an alien humidity. It clings
to the linings of the lungs like the
sudor-soaked clothes on our bodies.
And like the ancient rapacious
pirates buried unceremoniously in
unmarked graves, this bullying son
of global burning has stormed the
island’s pine forests and seaboard
drying the groves to tinder while
pushing up the beaches’ sandy skirts
so the Aegean can take by force areas
once beyond its greedy tidal grasp.
Tavernas and bars along the harbor front
will soon shut their double doors until
April when the poppies and tourists will
both bloom again and the winter winds
from Egypt and Israel will have blown this
bastard mugginess westward along with
some sudden, yet expected, Sahara sand.
Copyright © 2021 by John L. Holgerson.