Mulberries at Mustafapasha

When I stood under mulberries, hearing
rhymes and histories in the August shade,

I saw only a yellow ochre mansion,
buttery paint flaking to blue patches
of fresh-rinsed sky,

heard hoarse frescoes stir beneath
glossy leaves, chiaroscuro lattice swaying
dapples across the sun-bleached wall.

Sure as tomorrow and tomorrow
I smelt slow-boiled coffee, dark
and thick as treacle,

and, on warm-grained wood, felt
merchants’ palms, dry from dealing
salted fish and caviar, planting vines

to coil these steps, grapes
to cool a daughter’s parching throat,
faith that sons, and yet again sons

would cross the threshold,
look up for movement
at the ogee arch

knowing mulberries would
drop,

++++++white splashes
++++++in the bone grey dust of Sinassos.

…

Sinassos was the name of a Greek Orthodox Village in the central Turkish region of Capadoccia, renamed Mustafapasa at the time of the Turkish-Greek population exchange of 1924.

……………

Up for another Tuesday night round the world poetry read that is Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub http://dversepoets.com/