Afterwards

The sea in the wind in the half-light, clearing its throat of  pebbles,

Cloud shadows coming down the mountain with the steady speed

Of a paddle wheel. Light on the foothills already gone,

So that you need not look at the seminary on top

Of  the tallest—fat, square, and gray as a helping of  lard.

The roar from the beach stops suddenly, as if waves lost their nerve.

One dead branch of olive higher than Tsiknias from where I sit,

Its fingers pressed against the aquarium of the sky.

Then the sudden humanity of a bell

Struck twice, twice more, the rope

Rattling in its socket.

Earlier on I had colored the mountainside, crudely but fairly,

Getting at least the fall of the scree right

And the rasp of sun across schist—well, almost.

I look down at the painting now and try to decide

If the scene looks ready for the bell to sound.

No scene ever is.

Danger and chance are written on the face of things,

Grass fires, fog, fault lines, winds from the north,

Clumps of arthritic pines protesting,

Havoc among the flowering onions,

Ghosts, and the world descending

To waterlessness and unwelcome summer—

But not recurrence, not Nature, not the order of  service.

A snarling of  pebbles up from the beach again, as if  the waves

Have decided they might still win. Then the bell from the village.

The rope’s dry cough.