May evening near Mystras

- a memory of a memory -

How might he
remember it:
a new romance,
a lovers' tryst
at midnight
in my muslin dress
diaphanously dark as sky
is honeycombed
in memory's hive,
with chilled white wine
and cherries
as we sat beneath the trees
outside a rustic cafe near Mystras,
the threshold of Taiyetos,
whose heart lay in the thrall of ice,
awaiting spring, until late May;
frisson of owls in platanes,
the plane trees and the chestnuts
soughing, freshets purling
close at hand, leaves shuffled
as with someone's tread...

The drive to Sparta
under stars, the prim hotel,
the warm caress of jacket sleeve
on bare arm, meeting
cool white solitary sheets.

How might he recall
that night, the cafe
in the grove, whose waiter
tactfully retired so we
could bask in silvery mystique
and taste the cherries'
piquant sap, and hear
the little owls like stars
calling to each other
through millennia
since Helen fled.

Or is he, like the leaves,
long dead,
a marble slab above his head?