Santorini, a meditation on life

written at a quarter century

Santorini, self-concerned
Where ancient Thera smoked and burned
There upon the salty-sea
From Knossos to Mycenae
The great cloud rained ash upon the ground
And the rumbling thunder quaked profound
With Jovian anger; with thund’rous sound
Is the world broken,
And all my loves but a token
Of things imagined and unremembered
As I look toward another December
Where all voices of joy have been stilled,
And all ancient greatness killed.