They say I hold two continents at bay but I know better. Buried in my basin are the ancestors of my name.
Look at my right arm my friend. See my fingers stretching through the Dardanelles, Marmara, and Bosporus into my brother’s black plain.

 

 

Thousands of years I wandered your shores. With one elbow deep in your belly, I allow only one hundred and forty isles to raise.
With names as glorious as Lesbos, Chios, Leros and Kos, I let them all face their roving Father for praise.

 

 

 

I move my own way through secrets deep
taking guidance only from the heavens and my windward stall.
If you tempt me on your way over my veil, keep this in mind, I am known for pitiless blunder, for all I need is no reason at all.

 

 

You light my shores, liter my reach and under my mother’s light you lay your nets to harvest my produce.
What do you give back for the right to strip me so vagrantly?
Nothing, no nothing that I can measure for use.

 

 

 

I am here and I will always be here.
I have seen so many come and go.
As did Homer and Hector. As did the Minoans and Cretans.
Generations die as others are allowed to grow.

 

 

Listen to the sound of my eternal song and my timeless moan.
Do you hear my melancholy and smell my mystery?
Each morning let me glisten and team with life, smile for your soul and litter your mind. For whoever you are, I am your history.

 

 

 

Nick Porcaro – Kayakoy - June 24, 2009