Lefkes, Paros Island
after Archilochus
George Moore
They hid this village in a crux
of dry hills, near the spring
of a god. So tempting
to the pirates. Season of spoils.
And a slow walk up
to where we met
at the top of the Byzantine road.
Vines grew low in the ravines,
and those lilies you could not name?
White stucco houses outlined
in agate blue, and a Greek
word for wisdom.
There was a small chapel
on a pagan well.
And missing selves.
Time does nothing to
such places.
No matter how lost, the pirates
return to ravage
the summer of riches.
As I am here.
George Moore has poems forthcoming in Grain, Antigonish Review, Queen's Quarterly, Stand, and recently in Arc, Orbis, and Valparaiso, but has also published in The Atlantic, Poetry, North American Review, and elsewhere. His sixth collection, Saint Agnes Outside the Walls, will be published by FutureCycle Press this summer, and his last, Children's Drawings of the Universe, was published with Salmon Poetry in 2015.