Leonidio

The red cliffs hold the village as if by habit,
not guarding, simply there,
their faces changing with the hour,
iron at noon, wine-dark toward evening.

You come down into it by turns,
the road bending, revealing
first a roof, then a bell tower,
then the whole white scatter of it
set between stone and sea.

Morning begins before you are ready.
A door opens, bread is already in the air,
warm, yeasted, undeniable.
Someone speaks your name as if you belong,
and for a moment you do.

In the platia the chairs are set without thought.
Coffee dark as earth.
Hands moving, cups placed,
the small commerce of greeting
that asks nothing and gives enough.

Vines drag their sweetness along the walls.
Olives hold their slow green patience.
The sea waits just beyond,
not calling, not indifferent,
simply there to be entered.

At midday the cicadas take the light apart,
thread by thread,
until even time seems to loosen
and hang in the heat.

You walk without purpose.
That is the purpose.

A boy on a motorbike cuts through the street,
quick as a thought.
An old man watches, says nothing,
as if he has seen all this before
and will again.

Evening gathers by degrees.
Tables appear.
Eggplant dark with oil,
fish laid out like a quiet offering,
wine poured without ceremony.

Voices rise, overlap,
fall back into laughter.
No one explains the moment.
No one needs to.

Later, the harbor holds its lights
in a loose, trembling line.
The glass reflects what it can.
The rest is given to the dark.

You sit with the small burn of rakomelo,
watching nothing in particular,
and understand, without naming it,
why you return.

Not for escape.
Not even for rest.

But for this,
the way the place receives you
without asking who you were elsewhere,
and allows you, briefly,
to remain.