A Santorini Love Story

I recently searched for myself on the internet. The last time I did this, I found one of my poems published in a European publication. I had never heard of it before, but they did credit the poem to me. This time a website popped up in Santorini, Greece.

The page was illuminating Santorini as an island of inspiration. Some renowned artists and writers who spoke of the island in their works were mentioned; the photographer Robert McCabe, and authors Lawrence Durrell and William Lithgow. In the middle of this assemblage, I was mentioned. The webmasters said while considering the other writers they were reminded of my ‘Santorini Love Story’ poem, which is one of their favorites. They posted the entire poem.

I have never been to Santorini. I wrote the poem based on a conversation I had in Wal Mart with an elderly man who was born in Santorini and immigrated to America as a young adult. His words were filled with a longing for his treasured homeland which I tried to capture in my poem.

I am extremely flattered that someone in Santorini felt my poem captured the essence of the island and liked it enough to share.

I think I shall share it also.

Santorini Love Story

It was a simple art print

not an expensive work of art

but rather Wal Mart art

It was the title which caught my eye

and made me look twice

at a Santorini Love Story

I tried to find images of love the artist

saw in this picture of two wine glasses and

a wooden table on a weather-beaten terrace

overlooking a sleepy whitewashed village

and a limpid blue lake

An elderly gentleman stepped up beside me

Foreign by his speech with the courtly manner

of a time gone by he said Please May I?

A smile lit up his face as he explained

he recognized the place displayed on the print

he held in his quivering hands

The scene was of his homeland in the old country

It was there his sister once resided

in her little whitewashed cottage in Santorini by the sea

His aged face animated by the flow of memories

he launched into a story of the glorious times

he spent on that island It was a volcano actually

that time and tide have eroded

What I call a lake he called a caldera

He told me of a study in contrasts

the village side sloping gently down to the sea

the other side rugged and steep

Talked of lazy days in a small row boat with

blue sky above an even bluer sea below

and picnicking on the grass

where the bougainvillea grow

I heard of people whose simple values

never change content to let the world

rush by as they stay the same

With a hint of tears in his eyes he spoke

of the length of time since he enjoyed

the splendor of Santorini beneath his feet

His sister moved to the mainland years ago

and is now approaching eighty five

I bought the print of the most beautiful place

I ever visited Not in flesh but in spirit

Seen through the eyes of an elderly man

trying not to cry as he stood in aisle five

and shared with me A Santorini Love Story