Achaía

So many people fed us then.
So many strangers on trains broke off a chunk of bread,
crumbled cheese on it
and passed it to us
with a handful of dried figs.
 
Surely they were angels –
angels of God,
like in old tales.
 
In our sandals and innocent skin
we were children discovering a world of dew,
nothing to give in return beyond
our thanks, our wonder.
 
Those strangers long ago who invited us home
to tables in rooms up whitewashed steps –
was it food or words they gave us?
Salt. Birth. We remember
their woven blankets, the new sound
for morning.
Opening the shutters at dawn
as hill after hill unfolded in that first light, yes,
this was birth,
this was morning.
 

Margaret Wilmot

published in Envoi Issue 180, October 2018