The houses are set with stiff stilted shutters
Stained and lashed with liquid limestone
And tailored by locals to keep summer swelter out – insulation clone
They're bound by meandering mountainous roads
Framed indulgently with olive groves
And encased in a vacuum of air so crisp that smells like garlic cloves

Occasionally I can hear doorways creak
As though possessed with a palate for prey
Pride is invested in eavesdropping grapevines – so the locals say
The doors are painted colors eccentric even to the color blind
Or to geriatric loaded foreigners who steal domestic oranges for rind
And at times to naive tourists who believe in consecrated dirt and grime

Head-butting each other senselessly
Village goats stroll about the stringent streets
Trying to escape looming mopeds, roosters, travelers – void of peace
But out bliss begins to bloom boldly from deep within
When the disguised cicada's click is captured in the desiccated wind
Or even by the gracious grocer who greets me with his gorgeous grin

And although I'll need to wade through heat waves
Rising from the newly laid and crackling tar
Behind this tortured rapture I find a buried brace – spectacular
It's the ocean's ghostly turquoise sparkle and its undisturbed serenity
Which sleeps like oil until man disrupts its respite and solemn fertility
I let it mask me like a shroud of sparkling wine, and I swallow it, before it swallows me.

Awarded 71st place in the Rhyming Poem category of the '79th Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition', 2010.