Winedark Sea
A meeting of top economists fills
the best hotels on the island.
The tourist finds a room with a fan
over a disco. The economists
are visible by night entering the disco,
by day in the pools and on the better beaches,
at evening on the expensive terraces.
The tourist wonders when they actually meet.
Perhaps they don’t need to.
Perhaps they are seeking, like him, a vision.
More hotels, the hazy surrounding islands
bridged, the sea itself paved.
He wanders from the town
among the unbuilt hills, which are bare and brown
as advertised. Along a rocky path,
full of goatshit and other types,
he encounters a herd of goats.
Their slot-pupilled eyes, their jaws
when they briefly stop chewing,
seem to smile. Why not? In three thousand years,
the tourist knows, they have eaten whatever grew.
He crosses the hills to a “clothed” beach,
whose mood seems completely defined by not being a nude beach.
One of which can be seen from a cliff,
being penetrated as if by teams of commandos
by boys from the town.
That afternoon the tourist sails to the famous
nearby island with ruins.
A god was born there,
and later a thriving city
devoted to banking and phallic celebrations.
In town he misses the funeral of a fisherman –
women in black, wailing,
disturbing traffic and even, perhaps, the economists.
He hears of it from two Australian girls
at the cheap café, who are willing for him
to buy them a drink, but mostly talk to each other.
It’s the usual thing, they say:
a year of pointless roaming about,
then choosing cribs and carpets in some flat.
At other tables, old impassive locals
play cards, and between two sips
of his drink, the tourist has his vision.
*It doesn’t matter where I am*, said Hamsun.
That’s vision now. That’s what a “vision” means.
|