A Traveller's Tale.(Poetry)(Poem)

 
   A TRAVELLER'S TALE 
   for Anne Stevenson 
 
   After the dusty nightmare drive through the mountains 
   where roadside shrines leaned with their little doors 
   sagging open, and rusted cars were breaking 
   out of time on the phrasing scree, we came 
   to Apollonia, where the dusklight had already retreated 
   to its misty redoubt on the lake. 
 
   Not speaking Greek, we wandered like vacant dreamers 
   past the warm coronas of candles glimpsed through the portal 
   of a church, then on through a few lit stalls displaying 
   honey, halva and fruit, drawn by a waft 
   of music to a ring of trees with whitewashed thinks 
   where some dancers were calmly swaying. 
 
   All of them wore black and not one, you'd guess, 
   was under seventy: absorbed, knowing each step, 
   they moved with ...