I still see blue sky and sea under sun and wind

on a motor launch to the island’s white harbor

my car broadsides hanging

out across the stern. I don’t remember

how we docked or the morning ride

sixty miles over mountains to the outpost

of Emborios. Today it is a Port, there

Is a little dock, still a black rock beach, footprints

of my children washed long ago away.

Must be electric light now,

there are apartments to rent. Is there nothing

left that I remember? The migrant workers

stooping in the sun to tap Mastica trees’

sap for gum? Where are Hermionie

and Yergos Polykronopolis--

their traditional hand made house, the precious

propane lamps they commanded

us to protect, then smashed against

the stairs.

I don’t deny ducking lethal threats

they threw at me echoing

off their cool walls,

“Souvenir Shards”

the sound dying away the faster

I drove in wavy light, a long way

away, by car, ferry, plane, time.

They didn’t try to follow

but they left themselves behind

in the black rock, serene sea and mountain

landscape for me to remember

and that is the tyranny of memory.

Unit eight

Exercise 1. Read, translate and transcribe the following poem by American poet Carol Levin from the collection “Place one foot here”. Write down all unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own:

The Omnipresent Heat Of August

In the heart

of the Plaka in Athens

the passageway at old Pension-Cleo

is crowded. We wait

our turn to shower.

It’s heat--

the heavy kind. The kind

that expands tempers.

The kind that enervates. The weight

that is heat pressing,

extruding every drop of moisture

to trickle down a body.

Heat only cold

showers soothe.

How many in line

in our way

is all we notice. We don’t know

hippies, yippies and students

back home in civil mutiny

boil over

this 1968 August 27th,

smashed by Chicago

police batons beating

anyone, everything.

One hundred and one

on their way

to the hospital.

Democratic Convention democrats

head-to-head

over the Vietnam War.

Our silence

fills the hall.

We wilt

oblivious,

desperate to cool down.

Exercise 2. Make up a list of transport means according to the model in exercise 2, Unit 1.Read, translate and transcribe each word on the list. Repeat for clarity of articulation. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Use the terms in sentences of your own.

Exercise 3. Read the following poem by Carol Levin. Translate and transcribe it. Repeat the new words over and over. Accuracy first, the speed! Make a recording of the way you sound as you begin your studies, and then make a comparison, recording every six to twelve months:

Olive Branches, Oracles and War Against War

They chucked stones from their sandals

at the end of their trek. The cool

olive groves’ gray-green

healed their pain after dragging

themselves from a hades like heat

to the slope of Mt Parnassus

In search of Athena and Apollo’s

“earth mother” sanctuary at Delphi.

For ancients, the center of the world

where heaven and earth met,

where man was closest to the gods--

They lifted their faces to the niche

wherein Sibyl, the Oracle, inhaling vapors

dispensed advice on war and such.

Now the crevice was empty so mother

and son took turns climbing the rock

to sit cross-legged looking out

at the olives, wishing

someone there knew something, anything.

They fancied they heard the old audiences

glorifying triumphs of war. Tragedy

compounding tragedy. I take my son’s

hand, squeeze hard. Still too green

to be forced into the killing heat of today’s

Tet. offensive, Hanoi’s gamble raging