an island of earth indistinguishable from the continental drift / split by slow sea currents turquoise shallows / translucent blues shimmering / sparkled glints glimmering light stardust touching over the seascapes churning / swelling / the peopled coast backdrop of heights / cliffs of textured mountain stone / bold mineral pigments diagonal swirls of rock vertical latitudes of visible Eurasian plates / opposing itself mega-rifts of warring earth clashing like the gods of our primal arboreal fears among the trees we built on stone / to pray / that they notice us in their power mightier we made them into symbols / for all that is seen / by an eye / hand or breath
on either side of the watery course that makes inlets / coves and bays shine with our earthly greed the dark wet stone dies against weather-beaten walls made by the involuntary exhales of Poseidon / blue god of the West rushing into the coastal rock like the moving sea / the verdant greens lone trees sprout to welcome worshippers of contemporary re-creation us who sacrifice ourselves to the bodies of fish and vegetables
water itself on altars of wood cut and finished / floating and bobbing / over beatific depths coastline to mainland / tall trunks thin / stand alone behind a beach of washed red sand leafy tops adorning the horizon / where the mountains of Anatolia spring to life along the Aegean high / of orchards and vineyards / olives and grapes dotted brown earth surrounded / forests to the tree line / trampled by footsteps of Asia down over Europe, fumbling / only to reach the seaside shade / taste fruits of the West
play in the shadows of the white-winged gulls / the black crows who steer through the air from shore to shore / focusing through into the clear coastal seas lucid dreaming to the bottom / all for a starfish / an eel / a weed / a sponge
Matt A Hanson is a poet from Massachusetts based in Istanbul. The first of his ten-poem series Blue Voyage appeared at dipity. This decad cycle is inspired by Azra Erhat, an early translator of classical Greek verse into modern Turkish. He archives his writings at FictiveMag.com