There are days that fall easily into two seasons, opening with a shimmer of spring heat before leaning back into winter-cold skies and bitter winds by their end, as if at the last moment a set of scales was tilted with the addition of a final, decisive weight. There’s little that is predictable about this … Continue reading A Time of Turning
“The least I can do is keep my eyes open. Attention is what I want to spend. I don’t ever want to feel inside me a whole storehouse of unused binoculars, magnifying glasses, telescopes.” ~ Barbara Hurd, 'Sea Stars,' Walking the Wrack Line Here in the mountains of northern Greece, we never know what kind … Continue reading More than Meets the Eye
In the absence of sunlight flickered a different kind of brilliance. It was brief and beautiful, an iridescent bead at the edge of a strange and moving place, a lonesome cemetery sloping towards the shore. There were cherry-red candles and sticks of incense left as offerings, sea-mist like a shawl. In the shallows, the sleek … Continue reading Wind, Water
“Whoever raises the great stones sinks.” ~ Giorgos Seferis, “Mycenae” Like a river on a map, I trace the sinuous line with my finger as it meanders over the stone. The crystallised vein is rust-orange in a shadowy white expanse. The marble is rougher than I’d imagined, more like a sheet of compressed salt, baked … Continue reading The Marble Shore
“We were deeply engaged in this improbable geology.” - Patrick Leigh Fermor, Roumeli I woke early to beat some of the fevered heat of the plains, the kind of humid blaze that leaves you soaked to the skin by mid-morning. The silhouettes of the Meteora were etched faintly against the night sky when a startling … Continue reading Meteora: Stones of the Sky
Julian Hoffman 