Zakynthos and Cyprus

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Zakynthos reddish rocks recede where blue

Of water colored like no Grecian wine

Could hope to be, no wine that Homer knew,

The rocks and water making up a shrine

Of beauty made to beauty, setting them

Apart in beauty in the worship of

The waves and isles, the colors of the hem

Of Aphrodite showing us to love

Both love and beauty, rocks and water both

Increase the holiness of sacred hope.

We do not need to take a solemn oath.

We do not need to use a zoetrope.

  The beauties are themselves the stirring scene

    For Aphrodite, loving’s sacred queen.

~ Phillip Whidden