Visit from my Mother on my Birthday

 My mother sits on the ledge

of my balcony

overlooking the pool

and the Aegean Sea.

She blocks my view of

the island’s geraniums,

bougainvillea and

beach umbrellas.

She says she Cloroxed

the sheets on my hotel bed

and cleaned the sink

with Borax and Bon Ami.

My friend Barbara,

the psychoanalyst,

says it takes more than

a breath to get over

a mother’s death.

My daughter Liz

says I have a vivid

imagination.

But I swear, there is my mother

in a Swirl housedress, 40’s wedgies,

her rimless glasses perched

on her nose like mine.

Why are you here? I ask

as the ferry to Tinos 

sticks its nose out

of the rocky cliffs

and sails silently across

my page.

“It’s your birthday, right? “she winks.

“Birthing you was like God

building Andros Island,

pushing it up and

out of the sea. No small thing!”

“Go back to Brooklyn, to buttered bagels

and Maxwell House coffee,” I beg.

“You don’t belong here among

Greek ruins and broiled octopus.”

My mother is indifferent

to ferry schedules or

broken ancient pottery.

She doesn’t want to climb

the steps to the Acropolis,

or say the names

Dionysus, Aphrodite or Apollo..

Instead she gazes at 

a boy in an orange

bathing suit climbing

out of the hotel pool.

I write the words:

boy in an orange bathing suit,

 and she is gone.

6/27/05 Andros

Poetry written by 2005 AAC participant

June Gould

Andros love song

I take so much with me.

The Aegean

slate blue today

bordered by

the shadowed Andros hills,

a lone motor boat leaves

a single slash of white

in its wake,

palm fronds gently wave

in the foreground,

the whole view framed by

the sunlit whitewashed arch

of my balcony.

The breeze is gentle

here on my balcony

the sun not yet too hot

as I fill the last pages

of my Andros journal.

Now and then a loud Greek voice

breaks the stillness.

They are not angry, these Greeks,

just enthusiastic.

Yesterday I sat on a rock

on the Aegean beach

kicked my legs in the ancient water,

collected stones that might have been

walked on by the ancients.

My head and heart are full.

I take so much with me

 7/17/06  Andros

Poetry written by 2006 AAC participant

Ruth Steinberg    

Impressions of Chora

Chattering crowds

jam the square.

Exuberant Greek syllables

hang in the air.

An uncooperative ATM machine

keeps its euros.

Two priests in long black robes

argue amicably.

In the cafés

chairs crammed around

little round tables

frappés sucked noisily

with satisfaction.

And over all

the haze of cigarette smoke

in the hot Aegean sun.

Across the square

the souvenir peddlers

sell glossy postcards.

Kittens sleep under

a blue wheelbarrow

and down the narrow side streets

blue shutters on

white white sunlit houses

always framed by

blue, blue sky

  7/14/06 Chora, Andros

Poetry written by 2006 AAC participant

Ruth Steinberg    

Melody in blue

Ella Fitzgerald and I

sit on the terrace

overlooking the Aegean.

Every time we say goodbye

I cry a little, she says.

I tell her I feel the same way.

I catch a whiff of cigarette smoke;

it’s oddly pleasant,

like a nostalgic look

at an old photo album.

I drink in the view

inhale it

take it with me

and leave Ella to sing

Yesterdays.

7/13/06 Andros

Poetry written by 2006 AAC participant

Ruth Steinberg    

The wasp

A wasp crawls across

the stone floor

of my balcony,

distracts me from

my writing.

I watch it move

erratically

from stone to stone

tracing the concrete

that loops around

and connects them.

Why doesn’t it fly?

Finally it stops.

It’s feelers wave feebly.

Just as I think

it’s going to die

it starts up again,

loops around another stone,

stops again.

Why doesn’t it die?

Is it resting on

the cool concrete?

It moves a few inches,

stops again.

Suddenly the wasp

crawls faster,

purposefully,

intent on some errand

I’ll never understand,

disappears behind my chair.

Why doesn’t it fly?

Afraid of its stinger

I don’t move.

Is it trying to frighten me?

Why doesn’t it die?

I should leave my balcony

close the doors behind me

but I just sit

watch the wasp.

Why don’t I fly?

I don’t want to die.

7/13/06 Andros

Poetry written by 2006 AAC participant

Ruth Steinberg    

Aegean Arts Circle

We came alone to Andros

and through June’s alchemy

we opened to each other.

Now a part of each of us

belongs to all the rest.

A part of each of us

belongs to Andros

to the sun and the wind

to the moon and the sea

and Andros belongs to us.

When we leave Andros

we leave a part of us here

and next year

we’ll reclaim what is ours.

Because a part of each of us

belongs to all the rest.

And Andros belongs to all of us.

7/16/06  Andros

Poetry written by 2006 AAC participant

Ruth Steinberg    

Calm

Palm fronds wave slowly

against the whitewashed building.

Tiny white houses

framed by the arch

of my balcony

nestle in the Andros hills.

Yesterday’s winds are gone,

the sky is almost cloudless,

and the Aegean

mythical, magical

is calm.

7/13/06  Andros

Poetry written by 2006 AAC participant

Ruth Steinberg