Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival:

Sifnos by Henri Cartier-Bresson

An image in silver

of a Sifnos street can be bought

today at Swann Galleries

in Manhattan

starting bid:$3,000

 

There solid sheets of light

rain down on ancient

cypress

 

now cyphers

 

Beyond the sea

is another form of transparency

 

What art is there

to make need

of these elements

 

When sky is another medium

of light,

 

and existence, an invitation to love

within webs of blood

 

Once, Sifnos

had silver and gold

at the core

 

Potters, poets,

a treasury at Delphi

 

Hills terraced

like beehives

 

Then farmers, poets

and potters resolved

to sell gilded lead

as gold

 

and all the veins of Sifnos

ran cold

 

Centuries passed

the sea was glass

a Venetian town stacked

on the ruins

of this metropolis

 

The chapel of Seven Martyrs

set on barren rocks

has the dimensions

of Thoreau’s cabin

 

if Thoreau were Greek Orthodox

and a thousand years old

 

What need is there

to make art of these

 

Now that the stone footpaths

are empty

 

the child in the photo has gone

 

and Sifnos is a ship at sea

 

Yet the exhilaration of shadow

and vastness persists,

 

light and the odd sense

of loss

 

Just around the bend

lie

the immensities

of “let’s pretend”