FLYING SOUTH
Ascending south east from Manchester, over
Eyam, the ‘plague village’, towards the Wash;
cruising over the Channel, observing
the shipping below me with wonder like some
latter day Bleriot; then Rotterdam’s docks
and the Rhine; sun glinting momentarily
like fireflies, and I am nonchalant
as Icarus, mindful as Daedalus,
noting place names freighted with histories;
past Munich, and the bared Austrian Alps,
then due south along the Balkan Mountains,
smoke drifting north from polluting fires,
roads following the contours, rivers the colour
of onyx; then the coast, and sea water
the westing sun has turned to mercury,
with Mycenae rightwards, leftwards Troy;
descending over the Dodecanese
to Cyprus – island of Aphrodite,
wine and olive trees, worked out copper mines,
abandoned churches – with its new money
and its old divisions.
Sarah Selzer
April 27, 2018Evocative – and totally transforms what was a crowded holiday firm flight! That should be subject for another work, I think…. xx
Ian Craine
April 27, 2018Hello, David. As I read your Paphos poems I am myself in Piraeus.
All the best. Ian