An Evening Poem for the Afternoon

 As I'm rostered off work today, I thought I'd post something a bit earlier than usual. I did a bit of rooting around amongst the bookshelves and came across a volume from the old Penguin Modern European Poets series. Published in 1969, I picked this copy up about thirty years ago in a local bookshop - back in the days when we were well served with such places.

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Anna Akhmatova, Selected Poems - translated from the Russian by Richard McKane.

On The Road

A land not our own

and yet eternally memorable,

and in the sea there is tender-iced

and unsalt water

On the bottom - sand whiter than chalk,

and air drunk as wine,

and the pink mass of the pines

laid bare in the sunset hour.

The sunset itself in the ethereal waves

is such that I cannot tell

if this is the end of the day or of the world,

or the secret of secrets is within me again.

Anna Akhmatova 1964

This  could well describe my favourite place in the world to watch the sun set. From a small taverna hard by the sea in Boukaris on an unfashionable strip of shingled beach barely two metres deep on the east coast of Corfu.

The view toward the mountains of Albania as the sun goes down on the opposite edge of this, one of the narrowest parts of the island is breathtaking.

Fish - always fish! And a kilo of cold, rough village wine as the sea and sky merge into the deepest blue, deeper and deeper until coastline, sky and sea are indistinguishable and just the sound of waves on shingle remains. Bliss.