AND ELSEWHERE

    

    …the islands drowsed and dreamed. They lay in a hazy stupor of impending summer. Work was done, but slowly. There was not yet need to hurry. Tourists came and went while the islanders waited for them to arrive in more serious numbers so they could begin to take some profit from the season. They sat in open doorways and waited over rich dark coffee and talked until evening. Breezes were cool and even, the days long and warm, nights just cold enough so that sleep was restful. It was a good time of year, perhaps the best time of year, when flowers bloomed in the fields and there was a sense of fullness and regeneration.

    On the island of Delos something slept no longer. Indeed it had awakened weeks and days before. Yet it waited too, gazing off to Mykonos hungry-eyed and ancient as the spring. Watching for the shell of itself and for its consort. It was patient, knowing, avid.

    Alive again.