Blue stone on a White Stone (For Vallejo)

 

It is summer, always, by your sea in Syros

I’m sitting by the waves, night 

 

falling I never knew I liked night 

descending 

 

a tired bird on a smoky wet plain

motionless, your waves, smiles curl

 

I didn’t know I loved the sea

and here I loved the rivers all this time

 

I didn’t know I loved the sky

cloudy, ebony, clear, all the same:

 

like a safety pin, fastening, together.

How fingers could touch, trace, bind

 

I did not know, or how the blue vault could hold 

so much soul. But I know

 

I shall die on Syros with the crushing of waves,

on a night when the sand is weary, wet, kissed. 

 

Suddenly the ocean will roar

on a summer night, perhaps, in the heat of August. 

 

It will be summer, I know already, I felt it 

at once, when our toes touched 

 

where the Mediterranean dunes and sea 

like us, promised to return with the sun

 

when the heat can impress 

onto skin, fingertips, salt. 

 

Cagla Sokullu is dead. You would understand, if you fell

as she has, and with every tiptoe 

 

her blood was wine and 

took flight in her veins. Oh how she fell,

 

like every bird that loved the rain. Like the winged god

from the sky. She is the clouds. 

 

In the beating heart of twilight, a fragile breath stutters

and falls away short of its dare. Your hands 

 

Pull her apart, break her open, make her whole. The sea, 

the nymphs and the stars are her witness.