Part 6
I noticed her hand in the grass. I noticed my own. It seemed another’s hand. The grass altered its identity. I felt my naked knee, pressing a stone: it seemed another knee although I felt the stone. I thought: nature tries to claim us before we are aware, before we are willing to let her. Swift, she likes to confuse, preparatory to that eternal grasp of hers.
Crickets piped under the wall, asking for cooler weather. Abruptly, they stopped, perhaps to listen to Anaktoria’s singing. She sang until I fell asleep, to wake and find her sleeping, hands cupped over her breasts, afraid the bees might sting them. The wall’s shadow had lengthened and birds were quarreling. Summer’s integrity stretched from vineyard to horizon.
I thought about the two of us, our fragility, neither of us marred: sometimes, when someone is loving me, I am especially glad I have an unblemished body: I know my lover will have something to remember.
The ring Libus gave her glistens on her little finger.
Deeper, deeper—our love goes deeper, taking us completely; the early lamps sputter out; the stars gleam in the windows; there is talk of leaving, another trip to sea. But we shake off impending loss with each other’s hunger; he says, your perfume stays on me; I say, the smell of you stays on me. He says, come closer, farther under. I say, I can’t, I’m stifled, I’m submerged. Oh, impetuous lips. The depth of having someone your own, the depth of being the heart for someone. Phaon...the name, the body, the breath on my neck, special ways, his weight underneath me, supporting me, the sea coming through the windows.
There is nothing better than love.
O Beauty, you know I love him because he is the way I want him to be, you know he is kind...care for him!
A man speaks before the Acropolis in the moonlight:
“Stranger, you have come to the most beautiful place on earth,
the land of swift horses, where the nightingale sings
its melodies among the sacred foliage,
sheltered from the sun’s fire and the winter’s cold.
Here Bacchus wanders with his nymphs, his divine maidens;
and under the heavenly dew forever flourishes the narcissus,
the crown of great goddesses...”
Mytilene
I
have not seen Phaon for days and I feel eaten by rust, the rust that consumes bronze. I feel myself flake between my own fingers. Nothing distracts me. I tell myself I have no right to such feelings; it is wrong: be aware of the beauty around you, I say.
I have always believed that those who live beside the ocean should know more about beauty than others. Their minds should be richer, their faces kinder, their stride freer. Rhythm should be their secret.
I know this is false but I must evoke beauty. I must capture the magnificence of the sea and use its power. I must trap changes and repetitions, the storm’s core and summer’s laziness. There is superiority in these things, to help us through life.
But, with Phaon away, few things come alive: I am seaweed after the gale. Husk, why trouble others? So, I sulk. Or, when my girls insist, I revive briefly.
When will the atavistic fingers come and when will I smell the cabin’s wick and the nets? Oh, drown me, Egyptian lion, Etruscan charioteer, lunge and shield: yours is the tyranny.
Surely feminine love is kinder, less responsible, graced with evasions. Masculine love is a beginning, an intensity that goes on. Masculine love pushes into the future, asking roots, a thread of continuity.
. . .
Last night, Phaon took me among terra-cotta lamps, their wicks flaming coldly. Perspiration glowed on our bodies. A cat jumped on our bed and Phaon pushed it away: wind rustled: leaves shook: flames swayed: this was the love I had wanted and I accepted it and made it live: no little girl’s love, mine was glorious, damning all loneliness, knowing he would be gone again.
A dried flying fish revolved on a string above Phaon’s cabin door. His boat rose on a gradual swell, seemed unwilling to glide down.
“Let me sail with you when you sail next time,” I said.
“How could I take care of you?”
“Right in this cabin.”
“Would you sleep on the floor?”
“Why not?”
“What about food? Food goes bad...our cheese spoils...our meat...our water. Sometimes we can’t land a fish.”
A smile wrinkled his face, as he hulked against the cabin wall, his smile vaguely reassuring.
“What about the heat and cold?” he went on.
“I was hungry and cold in exile.”
“That was...years ago.”
The flying fish spun, and I thought about time. Had so many years lapsed? I said no more. He had silenced me effectively for I could not endure those prolonged trials and no doubt the sea voyage was impossible: luxury had softened me. The spinning fish would have horrified Atthis. And was I very different?
But we sailed along our coast, hugging it, unloading fruit, getting away from the windless heat of Mytilene, selling dates, lemons and limes. As we sailed in a faint wind, the crew sang. Lolling under an awning, I heard stories of catches at the deeps just beyond us, deeps where the water shimmered flatly, as if of rock. One crewman, not much bigger than a monkey, dove for shells while we crept through shallows. Pink shell in hand, treading a wave nakedly, he offered me his prize, as I leaned over the side. Kelp floated around him and tiny blue fish darted in and out, under his legs and arms, angel fish lower down, perhaps frightened.
While the monkey-man dove for shells, youngsters swam from small boats, hailing us, boarding us, some bringing fish as gifts. A blond, husky body, his shoulders thickly oiled, shared an orange with a girl who had his oval face and fair skin: twins, I thought, and went to the stern to talk to them, comparing their arms and legs, their features and hair. The flock of youngsters cluttering our desk found us amusing and laughed at us.
The twins talked about a wrecked ship, “from a strange land...you can see her at dawn, when the water’s quiet...she has a sunken deck, a huge rudder turned by chains. A great red and gold beast is carved over the stern...”
As we shared our oranges, juice trickled between her breasts.
Someone shouted and there was more laughter, and, as if prearranged, the youngsters abandoned us, dove overboard and swam shoreward, splashing, calling, wishing us luck.
I wish I were that young, I told myself.
That night, heat lightning brushed the sky, forming kelp-shaped ropes of yellow. Huge clouds massed about a thin moon and Phaon prophesied rain.
My head on his lap, we drifted, watching, listening to a singer, invisible man at the bow. His words made me uneasy as he sang of lovers lost at sea. Our sail had enough wind to fill it and yet we appeared immobile.
I drew Phaon’s face to mine and his mouth tasted of oranges.
Above us, behind us, his flying fish rocked.
The lightning played among the stars and wet the sail and our helmsman bent sleepily over the rudder: it was a night for love and when the cabin had cooled, Phaon and I sought each other: he placed an orange in my hand, the singing went on, the sea sobbed, the orange fell.
“Phaon?”
“What is it?”
Keep me, wait, go on, love me, don’t...I wanted to say so much.
I caressed him, breathed him in, the sanctity, the favor, the graciousness, the ephemeral. I wandered through caves. I dove to the wreck of the red-gold ship. I...
Later, we divided the orange and its sweet dribbled over us and he pressed his mouth there and we laughed, thinking with body.
I woke to see the moon sink below the ocean, to see how beautiful he was, his ship and fish swaying as a fresh wind clattered the sail.
Noon found us back in Mytilene.
PHAON
He is god in my eyes...
my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,
hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body
and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn’t far off.
Anaktoria’s flesh seems almost transparent—a sensuous softness coming from inside. When my girls are dancing on the terrace or in the garden, I wonder who is most beautiful.
Kleis spins. Atthis bends, arms upflung. I see a grape-tinted breast, fragile ankles. Yellow hair flies over shoulders. Gyrinno’s throat is perfect. Malva’s thighs. Look, Atthis and Anaktoria are dancing together. For an instant, their lips meet.
Tiles are blue underfoot.
Our wonderful harpist, an old woman, watches with burning, lidless eyes, remembering her naked days, playing them back again.
Cypress are drenched with sun.
Winter has come and Alcaeus has changed.
Winter—Libus and Alcaeus sit in my cold room, waiting. They have been waiting a long time for me; they were here when I returned from my birthday trip.
Alcaeus’ face is deeper lined: it has been lined for years but something has happened abruptly, pain has pinched the flesh into new, tiny, angry wrinkles.
Friends have reported that he is drinking again and yet this is more than drink because I realize it is inner debauchery: the eyes cannot confess: instead, the voice tells.
We huddle in our warm robes, the wind howling, and he says, in this new voice:
“What has kept you? We’ve been waiting a long time.”
Libus says:
“We haven’t forgotten.”
“Or isn’t this the day?” Alcaeus asks peevishly.
“Of course it’s her day,” Libus says.
Alcaeus chuckles.
When was it, I kissed that face, admiring its masculinity? His hands never trembled.
Wind shakes the house.
Mind travels to other days when we struggled in exile, when Alcaeus, badly dressed, kept us in food, stealing, conniving. Often there seemed no way to get by. I sat, waiting, blind to life. That sort of blindness was weakness on my part, or acceptance or hope. Listening, while we drank, I asked what hope he had? He was deriving some satisfaction from his relationship with Libus. There seemed nothing else. Little by little, he forgot why he had come to see me: happy birthday became grimaces, guffawing, vituperations over battles. He and Libus grew excited, enacting scenes with their hands, shuffling their feet.
“This is how I beat off his genitals...”
Alcaeus roared, hand on his beard.
“I beat open his helmet...”
Yes, the war...
And in my room, I found relief listening to the wind, remembering the boat’s passage to Limnos, my friends there, the festival in the vineyard, flute and drum, carom of bodies, laughter: Was it Felerian who laughed that low pitched melodious laugh? Was it Marcus who hurled his spear through the target? I erased Alcaeus: so much of life demands voluntary forgetfulness!
My girls had clambered about me at the dock, detaining me. Why does their love soften me? So often there are petty squabbles but, at reunions, they dissolve: the moment becomes a moment of accord, making life worthier: Gyrinno insists on carrying my basket, another smooths my scarf, another offers flowers. Kisses. They buzz into a flurry of plans.
“Tomorrow, we’ll go up the mountain...”
“Tomorrow, we’ll...”
Ah-hah-who, ah hah-who, the quails cry, as night comes.
I light mama’s lamp, so smooth to the fingers after all these years, like alabaster. The wick struggles into flame, as if reluctant to leave the past.
My Etruscan wall girl comes alive.
“Ah-hah-who.”
I take off my chain and pearl cluster and lay them in their scented box, pausing, sensing, dreaming.
Perhaps Phaon will be back soon—unexpectedly. I could not remain longer in Limnos, thinking he might return—tonight. I long for his mouth, the jerk of his legs, his obelisko’s tyranny.
Hunger—let me sleep tonight, tired after the voyage.
No sooner have I returned than I am upset. Life is constricted... I stand among Charaxos’ Egyptian treasures, confronting him: a twisted, gilded serpent god sneers at me: fragments of gold leaf blink: mellow gold is underfoot: I sway, as I talk, my parasol clenched across my belly.
“Now, I know,” I say to him.
“You know what?”
“That you schemed with Pittakos, to have me exiled, with Alcaeus.”
“What?”
“After all these years I’ve found out. Stop lying. You tried to get our home, that’s why you wanted me exiled. What a brother you’ve been! What a fool I’ve been!”
For once he shut his mouth.
“During the war years you made many trips, to sell your wines...refusing to help me financially...yours is a debt you won’t pay...and you don’t care. I’ve dedicated my life to writing...I live no lie. I work to make life significant.
“And now, why have I come? To quarrel? No, to tell you the truth. I’ve nothing more to say. I want you to know that I know. It’s a satisfaction...”
I could have talked on, but I left, snapping open my parasol, clutching Ezekias’ arm, walking swiftly, curbing my pulse, hearing a seagull, the wind icy at the corners of the town, dogs sleeping in the sun, carts passing.
I tried to believe something was settled, that life was worth more for having told the truth. Yet, I wanted to return to Charaxos, demand apologies and restitution, apologies for impertinent, biased criticisms, as if apology, like a brand, could stamp out wrong, as if there were restitution for my cheated years.
Somehow, as I walked, as Ezekias chattered, Aesop commiserated: his hunchback shoulders squared my shoulders: his doll had the dignity of a scepter to prod my spirit.
A tow-headed youth greeted us and I thought: I wish I could have a son. Yes, to give birth again. That glory cancels many defeats.
In Libus’ house, I turned to him and said:
“I told Charaxos what you told me weeks ago.”
“But I shouldn’t have told you, Sappho.”
“It was time I knew the truth.”
“And now you have an enemy,” he said.
“He has been my enemy all the time, Libus.”
We sat on his veranda, an agnus-castus sheltering us from the wind. His boy brought us drinks.
“Are we better friends?” he asked.
“I trust you more.”
Tree shadows moved across his mouth and chin.
“Trust is not always friendship. I shouldn’t have informed. How shallow we are, the best of us. We bungle. Friendship, yours and mine, it’s hard to measure, perhaps we shouldn’t try: isn’t it better left alone? Friendship, that’s what we’ve had all these years...I overstepped propriety.”
How pale Libus was, in his grey robe, shadows ridging the fabric, chalking his face, thickening his lips, greying his hair. His sandals moved nervously yet he never moved his hands: they remained weighted to his lap.
I ate supper there, lingering with the ancientness of his rooms, dark mosaics, the crowning of a king behind him, Libus’ chair of white leather, the king in the mosaic studying his crown, his jewels flashing red, a hint of Corinth and a hint of Crete.
Remembering my shepherd visit, I wrote this:
EVENING STAR
Hesperus, you bring
Homeward all that
Dawn’s light disperses,
Bring home sheep,
Bring home goats,
Bring children home
To their mothers.
What is it urges the mind to seek beauty? What is the challenge? Why go where there are no charts?
Beauty says it is a kind of love.
So, I make love, in my quiet room, the word symbolic of man, life’s continuity, my paper taken from reeds and trees. I write of birth, love, marriage and death, sensing that the unrecorded is vaster than the recorded. I sense the stumbling: the past could be a gigantic storm, fog obliterating at moment of revelation, fog fumbling from man to man, saying come, saying stop. The past is a wave through which no swimmer passes. As surf it inundates, then vanishes. On windy nights, it moans at my window, beautiful and hideous. I struggle on.
I quote from my journal kept in exile:
For three days we have had little to eat, days of quarrels, bitterness and savagery.
I gave myself to a merchant and he has returned the favor by feeding Alcaeus and me. We ate in the kitchen, glad to find considerate slaves. We can remain long enough to recover our strength, if not our hopes.
How I long for home and my servants, fish as Exekias can prepare it, onions in Chian wine, olives from Patmos. It helps to list the good things. Surely they are not lost.
How wretched to cheat myself to keep alive, to cheat the face, the mooning eyes, the stupid mouth, the odor of flagrancy, the disbelief...chattel, cringe, lie still, perform.
Copying those lines I remembered things I have never recorded, our filthy clothes, windowless room, flies, thirst, sickness...Alcaeus in jail... I was fined...authorities jeered at us...no sympathy, no luck until Aesop, his fox, raven and rooster.
I never thought him brilliant but he was always entertaining, agreeable about the smallest problem. Nuances come to me, as he told of a turtle that ferried a small turtle and then, at the end of the pleasant ride, said:
“Little turtle, you must pay.”
“How can I pay?” asked the little turtle.
“By doing me a favor.”
“Well, what can I do?”
“Hump along the beach and snatch me a fly.”
“I’ll do my best,” said the little turtle.
After humping and snapping till almost noon, the little turtle brought a fly to the big turtle. Finding the big fellow asleep, the little one had to cuff him.
“Here,” said the turtle, between closed lips.
“Ah,” exclaimed the big turtle, swallowing the fly, tasting it with care. “Umm, that’s the first fly I ever ate! You see a little fellow like you can do things a big fellow can’t.”
During the night an earthquake woke me and I wandered through the bedrooms, to see about my girls. Atthis needed covering and as I arranged her covers she murmured, “Mama, mama.” Before I could slip away, she grasped my hand.
“Are you homesick, darling?”
When I kissed her, I found her face wet with tears. “Why don’t you go home for a few weeks?” I whispered. “You were calling your mama in your sleep. If you’re homesick, you must go home. Let’s talk about it tomorrow. Do you want me to sleep with you?”
So we cuddled together and almost at once she relaxed and, after a few endearments, slept with her head on my shoulder, her violet fragrance around me. I held her fingers a long time. Drowsily, I asked: where do we go...why can’t we remain young...happy? The last thing I recalled was the sweetness of her perfume.
The earthquake had been forgotten.
Alcaeus sat on his leather stool, his dog at his feet, sunlight behind him; elbows on his knees, he said:
“...I prefer that hymn. There’s really no finer. In spite of time it’s full of force, spring’s arrival, the brevity of summer, the dying year. It has the shepherd’s power, the forest’s—passion tamed and sanctified. Another one I like is...
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall...
Libus, sitting near Alcaeus, quoted his favorite, huddling in his robe, his face averted:
Alone, in sea-circled Delos, while round on beach and cove,
before the piping sea wind the dark blue storm waves drove...
“Why do you break off?” I asked.
He did not answer but said:
“They knew, those ancients, how to supplicate the lowliest...they preferred the virginal...snowy peaks...whispering groves...the hunting cry...”
Warming my feet on a warming stone, I said I preferred the golden hymn and repeated fragments...
Long are their ways of living, honey in their bread,
and in their dances their footsteps twirl, twirling light...
Fragment of talk:
“We can’t marry, unless we have a child...you’ll be twenty-three soon...it must be like that...my house is a house of women...”
I thought of those words as I passed Phaon’s house, beyond the wharf, isolated. As I passed, waves climbed its base, licking at boulders. Its walls are thicker than most, cracked and mottled. I used to be afraid of that house as a girl and as I passed these thoughts brought back some of that apprehension. I glanced at the seaward balcony, tottering on wasted beams, painted years ago. Seagulls squatted on the flat roof, as they have day in and day out. There are five rooms underneath those tiles and his mother and uncle lived and died there, a harsh struggle in rooms of simple furnishings, coils of rope, nets, brass fittings and bronze anchors.
Phaon lives there with two men, their servants and a hanger-on. Kleis visits occasionally. A parrot, some say nearly two hundred years old, gabbles sayings and fills the sea-sopped silences.
Yes, his house troubles me—its darkness, its evocation of poverty and my own exile.
While I was ill, Libus cared for me, the mastery of his hands relieving pain. By my bed, talking soothing talk, he brought gradual relief, just as two years ago. His hands are more than hands, it seems. Magical masseur, he explores yet never gropes: his fingers, padded at the tips, press, release, wait. Our friendship, with all its confidences, in spite of differences, weathers the years and is stronger at such a time, under his mastery. As he obliterates pain, he blinks absently or smiles his pale smile, withdrawn yet assuring. He learned his art from a young Alexandrian, a man he met while studying in Athens, who spoke many desert languages.
“I’d like to see him again. I’ve learned something through my own experiments; we would share. Of course, he’s a great man.”
And when I asked Libus about my illness, he said:
“Too much work, too much rich food, too much concern. You haven’t been using common sense.”
I didn’t care for this and said:
“I know from what Alcaeus says, you help him more than anyone. You can help me.”
“I’m not able to help him all the time.”
“You mean his drinking?”
He shrugged.
“Let’s call it something else. He does nothing so much of the time. That’s where the trouble lies. He’s not thinking...doesn’t care.”
“He wouldn’t let me in when I went last. Thasos had to turn me away.”
“The great soldier...drunk.”
“What can I do?”
“Try again, Sappho. You and I know what he is—and was. You used to understand him better than anyone. Now, well, I do what I can. He’s growing worse...have you heard him bellow at me or Thasos, as if he were commanding officer? No doubt you have...and more...”
Libus’ hands pushed and then, feather-weight, stroked upward, over and over, inducing me to breathe steadily: his hands brought warmth, my thinking became clearer. As he pressed, the weight on my heart lessened; as his fingers covered my stomach, rotating their tips, I felt bitter anguish might not come again.
Lecturing me, he cautioned me about food and advised less exercise: rest, let the days flow by.
So, I sail with my girls, lie in the sun, walk, poke along lazy trails, fuss in my garden. Winter is hard on me. Chills come, leaving my stomach knotted, my eyes afire.
Phaon has returned.
Phaon and Sappho kneel in a grove,
a cithara beside them:
age-old trees shade the lovers:
the age of a ruined temple is part of
the timelessness of the grove:
bronze Phaon and white Sappho,
dusk takes over their whispers,
their motions, the wind in the olives.
Mytilene
U
nder the olive trees we faced each other, alone, the sun coloring the ground, patching yellow and brown. A butterfly circled, as if considering us. Tenderly, Phaon fitted his hands over my breasts and I held him in my arms; swaying, we kissed: we had not talked much and we knew talk could come later: his legs crowded mine: his hand undid my hair, spilling it over my shoulders: confirmation was in that un- disturbed place and accord burned our mouths and throats. Encystment was the slipping down of robes, our knees touching, the feeling, self, and underneath self, the ground, our earth: yet we were not aware, only before and later: the consummation dragged at the trees: I forced him to me, forcing back his face, his mouth: how warm his stamina: tenderly, we rose, to fall back: tenderness, how it becomes ash, taking us by surprise: I couldn’t stop quivering till his hands stopped me: his voice was real so all was real: then, he was home and this was not a lie: I knew it on the slope of hills sloping to the ocean: I knew it in the boat, far at sea.