No one knows I’m here, or cares especially,

and if I close my eyes I hear

the distant things Odysseus would have known

if he indeed existed in this place.

The chittering birds,

the muted bonging of the bells

on necks of goats,

like finger-chimes of monks in monasteries.

I smell the wafted perfumes he’d have breathed:

the mix of earth and herbs and warmed-through stone,

the pines and cypresses in this ravine

so high the clouds are stealing softly past.

A giant bowl of human silence,

fecund stadium indifferent to me,

except the cats that track my every move,

their hungry eyes on high alert.

One might just say the silence deafens

when compared to planes that track the Thames

on their descent over my London roof,

assaulting me in morning meditation every working day.

I climb and cannot quite believe

there are no yells or honks

or whoosh of traffic on the bridge,

but just the softest wind.

The bells now nearer through the pines,

the sounds of life on earth for one who watches,

listens, still as he can be,

expecting nothing more.

Exogi, September 2017