Hill of the Muses

ascending Philopappou Hill...
...to Dora Stratou's dancing school


The hillside facing Phaleron
would slowly saturate in sun
as if the sea, unquenchable,
a sponge absorbing light day-long,
wanted to repay the debt by nightfall.

Ascending, I would stumble
where the cobblestones glowed
polished, dense, glassy from the feet
of centuries, littered with bright
crusts and rinds, leftovers
from sun's largesse; wiping photons
from my face like pollen crumbs,
even on a day when nimbus
towered, violet as plums.

I'd linger at each dogleg corner,
every alley's elbow, knee,
thirsty for a glimpse of sea's
conspiracy with radiance:
tankers slipping anchor chains,
morphing into skeins of swans,
Saronic islands on an azure high.

My feet would crunch on shards
of rays, internalise them by osmosis,
priming insteps, heels and toes
with particles and lucent waves,
initiated on the way to dancing class
in light's pure art.

*

Philopappou Hill is the name commonly
used for the Hill of the Muses, as it
was called in classical Athens.