Lesvos by Christopher Bakken

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 19, 2016   Lesvos   Christopher Bakken

Fishermen out before dawn. None returned.               I asked you why they left their nets behind,   but you were looking out, across to Assos,               and maybe didn’t hear me in the wind.   We both wore the same ironic mask:               one blue eye floating upon a white sea.   On that balcony, beside the iron table,               a geranium held on for dear life.   All day we watched waves capsize in the rain.               Our shoreline here: the other shoreline’s mirror.   Those aren’t nets, you said after a long time,               but mounds of sodden jackets and lost oars.   Stray cats sheltered in the light of the café.               We didn’t know the others huddled there.   The wind changed course and tried to explain               by shaking the geranium, but words sank   in the crossing, so we heard under water.               When I opened my hands, my palms burned,   as if they’d been lashed by splintered wood.               In sleep, you told me, we have been rowing.   Truth is, no one here knows where we’re going.               I begged you not to leave, but you’d already   slung a orange scarf over your wet head.               There aren’t enough boats to carry them,   I shouted, so there’s nothing left to do.               There is, you said. I’m going down to see.              Copyright © 2016 Christopher Bakken. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “I have spent a lot of time over the years in Molyvos (a port town on Lesvos) and also in Assos (just across the water on the Turkish mainland). In the past two years, an estimated three to five thousand refugees drowned while attempting to cross the stretch of water separating those two places. Many of my Greek and expatriate friends have volunteered on Lesvos, or in refugee camps on the northern border town of Idomeni. What they have described is heartbreaking. The poem registers my sense of regret for not being there, if only to bear witness.” —Christopher Bakken   Christopher Bakken is the author of Eternity & Oranges (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016). He directs writing workshops in Thessaloniki and Thasos, Greece, and teaches at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania.   Photo credit: Kelly Gorney Poetry by Bakken   Eternity & Oranges (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016) "Fifty-Three" by Eileen Myles "By Night with Torch and Spear" by Timothy Donnelly "Moss Retains Moisture" by Matthew Rohrer Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038