Hubris

Only a Mile Further On

December 5, 2011 /

Where Words Go

by Becky Dennison Sakellariou

Becky SakellariouPETERBOROUGH New Hampshire—(Weekly Hubris)—12/5/11—“The landscapes of my two worlds, the Mediterranean and New England, are often tangled up with each other, one might even say confused as to where they belong. This ‘mix’ appears frequently in my poems, so I just ‘walk it through.’”—BDS

“Only a Mile Further On”

Late afternoon sunbeams bend

around my feet, my eyes

infatuated by their light.

 

The sky curves down

across my back, my skin

blazes with anticipation,

my palm against my neck

watching for the fall.

 

Last April, a yellow-bellied sapsucker

was sighted at Jemima Pond

in Eastham, Massachusetts.

I wasn’t there for this fragment

of grace.  I was pushing instead

 

through thick-stalked, thigh-high grasses

between my house and the quince trees,

aching with the redemption of beauty,

wanting the final answers,

not the problems.

 

You’d think there might be an edge,

jagged and abrupt,

so you keep walking

into that blueing distance, expecting

     only a mile or so further on

 

to where gray catbirds, razorbills

and ruddy turnstones

appear across the pond

in the late afternoon, sheltering

shards of light

 

that press into the water’s rough surface

as if to pass daylight

into darkness

through their fanned wing bones.

Becky Dennison Sakellariou was born and reared in New England, but has lived all of her adult life in Greece. Of late, she has been “making her way home” to New Hampshire. Writing since she was seven, Sakellariou has published poetry in a wide variety of journals. Her chapbook, The The Importance of Bone, won first prize in the Blue Light Press (San Francisco) competition of 2005 and her full-length book, Earth Listening, was published in 2010 by Hobblebush Books of Brookline, NH. In 2013, Finishing Line Press (Tennessee) brought out her chapbook, What Shall I Cry?, which was followed by a two-year long collaboration with Greek poet, Maria Laina, for The Possibility of Red/Η Πιθανοτιτα του Κοκκινου, a bilingual edition of eleven of her poems, also published by Hobblebush Books. In 2015, Passager Books (Baltimore) brought out her art/poetry book, Gathering the Soft, a meditation on cancer illustrated by Tandy Zorba. Sakellariou’s latest book is No Foothold in this Geography. Sakellariou has won a number of prizes from individual journals and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Anthology. “At present,” she says, “I am madly in love with my three grandchildren; you can find me either in Peterborough, New Hampshire, where I am endlessly amazed by the clouds, the snow, the trees, and the power of memory; or in Euboia, Greece, where I putter around my one acre amongst the olive, fig, almond, pomegranate, lemon, apricot, and eucalyptus trees, drawn by the senses and the mystery of place.” For a compelling introduction to Sakellariou's work, read her blog entry at "Off the Margins." (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)

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