Khóra Sfakia

I walk among the whores of Sfakia, the once beautiful 

sons and daughters hoarding fragments, lording and ladying 

and burning from the altars of their lips all instinct

still migratory.

For them the paths of scree to the promontory 

decay at the turning of the sky. They hobble to the one tree 

where an attendant is also a boatman and negotiate 

a passage back. 

I am pressed to vertical 

earth, hatless, mapless and without sunglasses. 

Golden bellied birds flash in a swift geometry upon lapis 

lazuli, and I tremble with the thrill 

of superstition: What spirits are these? Whose soul cries 

from the mouth of the ass?

Now, the water is a Leviathan

and ready to swallow. 

It thrashes about, not content with its containment, 

neither convinced nor concerned that lungs 

need land.

The whores of Sfakia wheeze and sleep with mouths open 

and lamps glaring and garments pressed to their eyes. 

If their messiah were to come in the night, 

I could not follow, for this is not a Diaspora, and the Son 

and the Father are only one half 

of one God.

I wonder why the earth supports us. We expect so much 

and renew so little.

It's Hero and husband, back and forth and up 

and down, scattering bones of aborted destinies.

He first slurred the ancient name

of this place, Khóra Sfakia--The whores of Sfakia, he announced 

and everyone laughed, then laughed again and laughed 

all the next day.

Now, she and he and I are pinks upon the sand. 

We offer our knees to the waves, and Hero calls, and her call 

takes the body of a gull.

Each of us awakes from the truth of dreams to the lives 

of our own making.

The sea moves her skin and enters me. 

I do not fear translucence. I do not fear this pregnancy, 

for I am with me. 

Khóra Sfakia [#3]

© 2000 Fammerée

“Khóra Sfakia” appears in Lessons of Water & Thirst, 

a book of poems by Richard Fammerée.

Our Mother who art in everyone, 

      everything is thy name.

Thy garden serene, thy waters green

      the earth as they blue the heavens.

Thank you for our daily bread and the blessing      

      that no one can be satisfied until everyone is fed.

Forgive our ignorance as we forgive 

     those who ignore you in each of us.

Lead us from fear and deliver us from anger 

      and anxieties, 

for life is a ripening to return to you, to feed you,

      to seed you,

to be reborn forever and ever

      Again

Notre Dame [#4]

© 2000 Fammerée

Notre Dame and accompanying music were offered in the World Festival of Sacred Music.

The final draft of the poem was completed in a Bedouin camp at the foot of Mount Sinai and first whispered into a full moon reflecting up from the Red Sea upon the eve of Passover.

The first public recital of this “lost half” of  The Lord’s Prayer 

was shared on Easter morning, 2000, in Jerusalem.

Notre Mère qui est en nous,

tout est ton nom.

Que ton jardin soit serein, que tes eaux verdissent 

la terre comme elles bleuissent le ciel.

Merci pour notre pain quotidien et le bonheur

d'être certain qu'aucun ne sera rassasié avant 

que chacun mange a sa faim.

Pardonne-nous notre ignorance comme nous pardonnons 

à ceux qui t'ignore en chacun d'entre nous.

Ne nous soumets pas à la peur mais délivre-nous 

de notre colère et de nos tourments,

Car c'est a toi que revient la maturation de la vie, 

pour te nourrir, t'ensemencer et 

renaître pour les siècles des siècles

Encore