Author: Anders Dahlgren

 
Church of the Holy Mother

On the lonely island
that rests on the Aegean’s knee
Church of Panagia Episkopi
lies cradled in the bosom
of the hill I climb.

Santorini light shimmers
at my feet
my mother gone three years.
I won’t cry for what’s left of my love.

A small doorway there
an ancient widow’s face is made young
by the sun’s raked angle
— she looks down at the floor
before asking me.

I trace into this sun-capped sanctuary
on hands and knees
the way I’ve seen pilgrims
beg for an answer.

 
How I Became Bilingual

          Father almighty
Mother recited

I repeated
          Πατερα παντοκράτορα—

one sound at a time
word by word

heard & said
          Maker of heaven & earth

cadences the way
Homer might have sung them:

          Ποιητην ουρανού και γης—
woven into the sinew

of my eight-year-old body
as she ironed

every fabric thing
washed clean that morning:

bed sheets
underwear, Father’s handkerchiefs.

Stack of laundry
stack of words

folded over
once, twice.

          Tonight, I bend over the laptop—
the lamp’s skirt

illuminates the prayer’s Greek letters
I’ve unfurled.

One word,
I see it now

          —Poet / Maker
          —Ποιητην

a word for God
laundry done.

 
Nepenthe

Here on the verge of the Atlantic in winter
off the cargo ship
Tasso’s olive oil from Kythira Village
sits in shipping containers on a dock in South Boston.

He’s pressed the oil himself, mallet aimed at the shiny flesh
of Kalamata fruit, olives that wept to earth
postage-stamp shade of the tree.

It’s freezing here in Boston.
The storm that covered us in snow yesterday moves out off the Atlantic,
the ocean I love best—
though I once stepped into the Aegean’s vowels and can’t forget.

My ancestors, I write the ancient cursive
my mother’s hand and homeland
Tasso squeezing the sun
out of the olives—the scent of licorice
on the etesian wind.

 
Reading George Kalogeris’s Poetry, I Remember My Mother’s Grape Leaves

George is my mnemonic:
She’s plucked the heart-shaped green leaves
from the park’s grapevine—
they darken limp over the plate.
Rice, pine nuts, onions and parsley mixed in a bowl with olive oil,
salt and pepper and one more mystery ingredient
I still can’t quite define.

How careful she is
trying not to tear her first leaf.
She spoons a mound
onto the middle of the vine’s open palm.

Fingering each tapered point she pulls the lobes
toward the center then curls the bottom point up
to roll a little log.

I want to speak.
Nothing spills.
She tiles it against the wall of her cast iron pot
repeating up the sides, four rolls deep
and leaves a hole in the middle—an empty space
that carries the weight of such work—

leaving room
for me to stay in my memory of her kitchen
to write out this mysticism of steam
leaves and aroma, how the words waft in

an empty space, leaving room
for a drinking glass to hold the stuffed grape leaves
tight against their embankment—so they don’t unravel—

How my mother sat me down on the rug by the kitchen sink
the stove-top simmering
repeating ancient Greek prayers in a tongue
sung only in church—maker of heaven and earth—

How the Greeks invented compound words
like avgolemono—egglemon
that bright sauce
that shines across the tongue
now poured over the taut coils.

She checks her stacks to keep the soup from curdling
to ensure each roll stays put.
Just like George’s Greek mother—I’m certain of it.
She lowers the heat
to keep from burning
what’s been made.

 
Tiresias Tells Oedipus

Here at the crossroads
I waited for you,
sparked the spot

as lightning’s legs
stalked and startled
the sky.

Once I was woman.
I change, I feel, I know
desire and how to curb it.

Blinded by Hera.
I can’t not see your future
unexpected, inevitable.
Above, birds circle—

so I speak
the terrible I know
the pain of auguries.

Believe it now—
I was woman
and in this guise

I speak: my voice
inter–changing before you:

Father. Mother.
Motherfather.