When dusk falls this far south of the Cyclades,
the sun rolls like a mandarin on the horizon.
Lush and clean, a freshly cut slice of spring,
bathing lovers with the tang of Metaxa.
Handwarmed in the foreign curve between lips
and glass.

When morning comes, and cockerels cry
wantonly in unseen fields, the sky screams blue
and the graceful eucalyptus brush the paths
to paradise.
The sea lolls its wavelets to shore,
wavelets to shore . . .
the heat feeds bones with peace,
and the traveler wafts straw brim to face
in a casual awareness of tranquility.

But the evenings, woven in jasmine and starlight
are the music of the southern isles.
Thin, and veiled with the last beeswing home,
they catch the last notes of frail taverna song.
Send lovers to their narrow beds, amazed;
lie thick with the morning’s blue-white promise.