Mikonos

It happens from time to time,

Listening to other people’s lives,

This sudden knowledge of a state

You share. You have no common

Memories of places, no image

Of the ruins of Berlin, the eagle

Torn from Hitler’s portico,

Leaving a dark high shadow.

Yet you share an awareness

Of what it is like to be young,

And argue with passion,

And believe they matter,

Your thoughts and words,

Your fervent appropriation of language.

And you share a sense of sunlit sea,

White houses and clear water,

And separation and loss,

And something given back.

Something was given back just now

As I listened to her saying:

This is what I had lived for.

I knew why I had come.

I, too, have known why I came,

I knew how she felt, this stranger,

I, too, have known how it feels

When all suddenly comes clear.

There it is again -

A fragmentary beatitude.

©Terry Hodgson2020