Andrea
Potos
By Andrea Potos
All my grandparents and my mother were born in Greece. My memories of Easter are steeped in the rich and cozy traditions of my Greek family. A centerpiece was always the succulent lamb and the Greek bread with red-dyed egg planted in the center. All this was homemade by my maternal grandmother (Yaya). A central part of the Greek tradition is the tapping of the red-dyed eggs after the meal; everyone taps everyone else's egg and the last one to remain with an unbroken eggshell receives good luck for the year! My Yaya and Papouli are pictured above with the egg-tapping. Here are poems about my visits to Greece, especially at Easter.
Remembering Easters in Childhood
Besides my Yaya’s juicy lamb and potatoes,
her round gold bread planted with
a blood-red egg in its center,
it was the clothes I got to wear
that felt like dress-up time:
white patent leather marijanes
newly risen from shoeboxes,
pastel dresses with layers that made me
want to twirl like the ballerina
on top of my jewelry box;
and a shiny white barrette
for my hair finally outgrowing its pixie cut.
My mind still takes photographs
of me standing beside my sister and our cousins,
on our Yaya’s front lawn in the late 52nd Street air
when the newly strengthened sun still gleamed
above the peaked roofs of the neighborhood.
On Our Way to my Grandfather’s Village
Roumeli, Greece
We stalled in traffic–a line of goats
tinkling their bells as they made
a relaxed gait across the narrow road.
They turned to notice us, no time to hurry.
The land held the clock, and we
were only its visitants.
A few more leaning, mountain curves,
and the village appeared–
warm slate rooftops, mottled grey stones
of the houses where my grandfather was born
more than a century ago, and from his memory–
the reading lamps of the stars.
Making the Greek Meatballs
patting meat into small mounds
for kefthedes,
rolling them on a plate
sprinkled with flour,
laying them gently as if to bed
in a warm skillet becoming hot,
waiting for the sizzle, butter goldening
to brown, aromas of my grandmother’s
garden parsley, oregano and onion;
fresh lamb and beef
becoming one, spirits
widening with anticipation
and every holy sense
All my grandparents and my mother were born in Greece. My memories of Easter are steeped in the rich and cozy traditions of my Greek family. A centerpiece was always the succulent lamb and the Greek bread with red-dyed egg planted in the center. All this was homemade by my maternal grandmother (Yaya). A central part of the Greek tradition is the tapping of the red-dyed eggs after the meal; everyone taps everyone else's egg and the last one to remain with an unbroken eggshell receives good luck for the year! My Yaya and Papouli are pictured above with the egg-tapping. Here are poems about my visits to Greece, especially at Easter.
Remembering Easters in Childhood
Besides my Yaya’s juicy lamb and potatoes,
her round gold bread planted with
a blood-red egg in its center,
it was the clothes I got to wear
that felt like dress-up time:
white patent leather marijanes
newly risen from shoeboxes,
pastel dresses with layers that made me
want to twirl like the ballerina
on top of my jewelry box;
and a shiny white barrette
for my hair finally outgrowing its pixie cut.
My mind still takes photographs
of me standing beside my sister and our cousins,
on our Yaya’s front lawn in the late 52nd Street air
when the newly strengthened sun still gleamed
above the peaked roofs of the neighborhood.
On Our Way to my Grandfather’s Village
Roumeli, Greece
We stalled in traffic–a line of goats
tinkling their bells as they made
a relaxed gait across the narrow road.
They turned to notice us, no time to hurry.
The land held the clock, and we
were only its visitants.
A few more leaning, mountain curves,
and the village appeared–
warm slate rooftops, mottled grey stones
of the houses where my grandfather was born
more than a century ago, and from his memory–
the reading lamps of the stars.
Making the Greek Meatballs
patting meat into small mounds
for kefthedes,
rolling them on a plate
sprinkled with flour,
laying them gently as if to bed
in a warm skillet becoming hot,
waiting for the sizzle, butter goldening
to brown, aromas of my grandmother’s
garden parsley, oregano and onion;
fresh lamb and beef
becoming one, spirits
widening with anticipation
and every holy sense
Finding My Grandmother on a Greek Island
Sifnos
I followed the aroma up the narrow
street of Apollonia, twin village to Artemonas,
up toward the whitewashed walls of a house,
one of so many with the blue shutters
and doors, blue like a being in itself.
Through the open door–an ivory cloth
with hand-done tatting trailed along
the edges of a dining room table,
a bowl of red eggs in the center (eggs
dyed for Christ’s blood). I moved
a few steps; the kitchen’s casement window
angled out where I stood near–held by the sound
of someone humming and chopping, perhaps onions,
beans or leeks to include in Easter supper,
a kapama sauce simmering from someplace
in the past behind her, everything
set in motion for the family to arrive.
LIFTED FROM A TRAVEL JOURNAL
cab from Delphi
olive trees olive trees
olive trees
to Galaxidi
sea captain’s mansion
vine-tangled courtyard
quince liquor
lemon cake with curd
uneven cobbled streets
harbor and mountains
here I could live
seeing through water
down to the stones
and the urchins--their beautiful spines
dinner like Yaya’s table
chicken kapama, thick bread
octopus and wine
strolling home
with stray cats
Orthodox priests
chanting in darkening spring air
MY GRANDFATHER’S HOME
Pendagiou, Greece
Tin, corrugated and rusted, now covers
what was once the roof, a few lichen-
stained tiles lie scattered.
Three walls remain; in places, vines
sprout across the uneven grey stone.
My daughter and I bend;
we peer under
a muddy tarp that cloaks
a rubble of fallen stones
as if saved for day the granddaughter,
and the great-granddaughter could cross
the Atlantic, drive the dizzying
mountain roads to kneel
on the April grass
and reach their arms inside, pick one stone
to carry home.
SOME QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE
Why so many cats?
Are those bars on the side of the Parthenon?
Did Socrates really
swallow the hemlock in that cave?
How many pillars make a temple?
Why an owl on top?
What did those urns hold?
Is the water always see-through?
How do the village houses, the steps
stay so white?
What do those stones mean? Tell me
how blue becomes that blue.
ETERNITY HAPPENED
Oia, Thira
once when the Greek sun
had its say
over the terraces and cliffs,
the lapis water of the caldera
waving and blinking Yes.
Even the feral tabby settled
on the veranda
where we stared,
where we breathed
stricken by beauty,
future--a word
we would not understand.
Poems are previously published in the author's books A Stone to Carry Home and An Ink Like Early Twilight (Salmon Poetry), and in Yaya's Cloth (Iris Press).
The poems "On Our Way to My Grandfather's Village," "Making the Greek Meatballs", and "Finding My Grandmother on a Greek Island" are all forthcoming in Belonging Songs, forthcoming from Fernwood Press.
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