Yesterday a friend of mine had to travel to Pylos, our local administrative centre, to pay some bills. As in the case of Kalamata, Pylos boasts one or two restaurants that offer a range of dishes to which above average attention is given to preparation and presentation. My chum suggested that as he had to go to Pylos we make up a small lunch party. I felt it would have been less than friendly to refuse so enjoyed with him and two others an excellent lunch of fish and chips and local Rosé, high on the cliff overlooking Homer’s ‘sandy Pylos', on the terrace of the excellent Hotel Philip restaurant.
Barbounia schooled below the balcony -Shadows on shelving sand in sandy Pylos.
Wave-clip and flirt, tide-slap and flop and flow;
I woke to the world there like Telemachos,
Young again in the whitewashed light of morning
That flashed on the ceiling like an early warning
From myself to be more myself in the mast-bending
Marine breeze, to key the understanding
To that image of the bow strung as a lyre
Robert Fitzgerald spoke of: Harvard Nestor,
Sponsor and host, translator of al Homer,
His wasted face in profile, ceiling-staring
As he schooled me in the course, not yet past caring,
Scanning the offing. Far seeing shadower.
Seamus Heaney. One of his ‘Sonnets from Hellas’.
2 comments:
Your gaze seems transfixed by the view, John
The view? The fish you must mean; it was indeed not only good to look at but also enjoyable to nibble, I am pleased that you seem to have enjoyed my view of it and have added a further photograph over which you may wish to salivate. Incidentally it was not, unfortunately, my favourite 'Bourbinia' but, so my angling chums tell me, a small sea-bream.
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