Judith Collins: This Traveler

for Brian Aldiss

You placed in my hand
a prehistory of mind.
(Yours?
Possibly.
Mine?
Undoubtedly.)
You called it a gift,
your gentle hold
as you relinquished it
betraying your fear
of awakening its angels.
You had etched
just beneath its skin
“Long life—lots of love”
and you kissed me
(I am sure
you wish the same
for all the girls.)

But—
from your high perch
above the ruins of Monemvasia,
does your eye grow tired,
looking over our shoulders?
Do you contemplate
each single entrance,
each love fading as it ascends,
its golden sandals losing luster
in dark tunnels, wearing thin
along the rocky, zig-zag path
toward the grassland above?
Would you warn us
of dark, doughty enemies,
invaders from the sea?
(Would we hear, above
the echoes of the ruins?)

Our sweet young ghosts
we leave at water’s edge.
Let them strengthen their limbs
in rock-strewn sand.
(The climb awaits.)
They cannot imagine as yet
how much more brilliant blue
the sea from each sad height.