Corfu - Bruce Silverman

[Larry Robinson]

Corfu: Olives Myths and Words

Barely shadowing my parcel of sunlight overlooking the Ionian Sea with
her placid azure waters are silvery green counterpoints, two
diminutive olive trees, bent like an aged couple facing off,  
gnarled and twisted, roots exposed, pock marked and struggling.

Who plants trees knowing they will bear no fruit for a dozen years? 

Eons pass and Menelaus’s kidnapped wife Helen launches a thousand
 ships, kings and warriors battle for a decade, Paris, Achilles and thousands
 more die. Another decade unfolds, this drama an underworld of sirens and
 sea monsters as the Odyssey bears its narrative fruit for generations. 

What Olympian storytelling gods orchestrate such a drama where myth
and history embrace as do the olive, and the tree that births it?
 
In our time the British authors Lawrence and Gerald Durrell descend into the
waters of Kalami bay for future readers and scholars hungry to partake of word
and verse. They had no titles, guarantees, or even prospects. 

What beings plant such seedlings for fruits only to be gathered posthumously?

Knowing how fruitless would be the self-indulgent grasping. 
Knowing that creating and even nurturing can reap no instant reward.
Knowing that with olives, myths and words, there is all the time in the world. 

	- Bruce Silverman