October 18 - Ftinoporo

(A plane tree at Agios Alexandros)

When a damp veil drapes itself over the landscape

Enfolding faraway mountain tops in mysterious light,

As though they were not part of the island of Lesvos

But part of far far-off poetic China.

When the purple-pink cyclamen with their frail turned-down petals

Massively and shamelessly change green slopes in another colour,

Their existence, a danger to pregnant women

But besides the bed, an encouragement to libido.

When monumental planes lose leaves like falling tears

Who knows for what punishment they have to spend the winter naked,

Leaving village squares unprotected under their titanic branches

That, in whimsical curves, bow to the high heaven.

When the bees buzz loud, partying like Dionysus

in the seductive scented ivy, full of nectar

That winds round trees in some places thick as vines,

Always thinking they are immortal.

When the pink heather coyly opens its buds

So that her sweet fragrance can invade the hills

Doing everything to lure all useful insects

For a contribution to a jar of honey or some royal jelly.

When the pokeweed has her bunches of stunning berries hanging

With such an intense colour but such awful poison,

Tempting daredevils who think it might bring about a cure

If prepared according to the book or when the plant is young.

When the shy grey fig trees crumple their large yellow leaves

Setting them free because their work has been done,

Their nutty fruit patiently dried as a winter sweet

Syrup pots empty, bottles filled, just leaving a delicious scent.

When ceps, milk-caps and other mushrooms awaken

Pushing their way up through the moist earth

Hastening to unfold their parasol heads

under layers of pine needles or the naked blue sky.

When the small red blushing apples of Agiasos

Have fallen from the wild trees and collected in green groves,

Gardeners with curved spines, both selling and praising them

As the mythical golden apples from the garden of Hesperides.

When the pomegranates with a colour tending to pink

Some stubbornly aiming to survive till Christmas

Offer their uncountable blood-red seeds to all lovers

Like Persephone, kept in Hades because she ate too much of them.

When the corpulent quinces have finally ripened

And their velvet golden skin waits to be scratched off

So that their hard yellow flesh can be put in pots and pans

To make a winter stock of cough syrup, jelly and liquor

When the irresistible, cheerful strawberry trees

With long straight boles like enormous cinnamon sticks

Show their fruit, as red as bright Christmas balls

Allowing but only one to eat.

When the prickly husks of the proud chestnut trees

Once brought to Greece by Alexander the Great

Tear open to show their Sardian nuts

Plopping down with soft thuds onto the tapestry of fallen leaves.

When the sunbeams keep on bringing warmth

Their light wandering over all these natural miracles

In the evenings adding more orange to the already colourful land

Looking for their bedstead each day a little earlier

When these warm colours and crackling leaves

Sweet fruit and flowering plants with their perfume overpower the island

When even the sea has to say goodbye to its summery swimmers

And this colourful season is finally here.

Then it is autumn again, or ftinoporo

And there are no more words to fully describe

How the Greek gods of Olympos again and again

Make a party of this crying world.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

© Smitaki 2014