I began to wind my way through the Cycladic Islands, staying about a week in each port town, allowing the infrequent, offseason ferries to determine my route: Syros, Tinos, Mykonos, Naxos, Santorini, Rhodes and back again to the port Piraeus near Athens. My routine on the islands was simple: wake up, eat a boiled egg and yogurt in the one hotel open during the winter, search for a three-day-old International Herald Tribune newspaper in English that I would read slowly to the last word and then hike in a different direction than I had the previous day. I would return for lunch to eat some indefinable part of a goat with a fractured bone protruding from watery tomato sauce, drinking a large bottle of Amstel beer. Despite the desolate beauty of the islands, which I recognized as the rugged tops of mountains emerging from the sea, my ten weeks began to resemble a prison sentence. I’d follow a path to a cliff’s edge and sit looking at the water, like Steve McQueen on Devil’s Island at the end of “Papillion,” cultivating patience.

My main interaction today was freeing a goat from a wire fence. They are like weather vanes, pointing their noses into the strong wind to stand upright while they graze. This goat had stuck his head through a fence to reach some good grass and got his horns tangled. He just rested calmly on his knees, trapped, continuing to chew. After I worked his head out of the wire he walked casually away from me, pausing and turning back with a look of benign gratitude.

Where the Walls Meet, Momentarily

Some old man is hacking his lungs out
As he rolls a cigarette
Birds are all atwitter in the sun
The dogs enjoy the doorways
The shade of empty shops, laundry in the alleys
Smells of cooking have begun

Empty white sky, almond blossoms
Sausages, newspaper and beer
Empty blue sea, sails against the olive trees
Half-drunken drawing of the pier

Sound of a telephone carries through
All the cobbled streets
Big sheep abluster in the wind
The children watch a priest
Conduct his make-believe
Father, son and holy ghost
I pray my soul to keep

Empty white sky, almond blossoms
Sausages, newspaper and beer
Empty blue sea, sails against the olive trees
Half-drunken drawing of the pier

I stood in one place for so many hours
That my shadow crept from out beneath my feet
Where the walls meet, momentarily