Bitter Bread

A Kalymnian lament


Even when the sea
has lured your husband
from the marriage bed,
to lie in pearl and coral
with a diving-stone
upon his breast;
even when the octopus
supplants you
with her coiled embrace,
so that you rise
and curse the light,
your days obey
unwritten laws -
your life endures,
and holds its bitter course.

Even when the one
you worshipped
with each glance
and every breath
surrenders to Medusa's
blind paralysis,
the gods' dark gaze,
but leaves no grave
for you to tend,
no token gift,
no messages,
so that in dreams
you rail at fate -
still you consume
love's bitter bread.

And in the island's
winter dawns -
winged rose
and fleeting cyclamen -
you make the perilous ascent
to stand, wind-challenged on the crest
where all horizons can be seen,
and scan the seas for his return…



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From the cycle, "The Sea,
the Stars, and Kalymnos"

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It is estimated that between 1886
and 1910, when the Aegean sponge-
diving industry, centred on the island
of Kalymnos, was at its height,
10,000 divers, mostly Kalymnians,
lost their lives, and 20,000 were
crippled for life by the bends, an
occupational hazard for divers
caused by nitrogen bubbles in the blood
in conditions of sudden decompression.