Mytilene

642 B.C.

M

y heart is heavy...Aesop, my friend, is dead.

He could have had a kinder messenger-it was Pittakos who brought me the news.

"The mob killed him for causing trouble in Adelphi," he said, his eyes cruelly cold. He had met me on the street, after a performance of "The Martyrs."

Did he think this the right time to let me know? Was it a warning?

I stared at him, as he shambled beside me. Then, before my face could reveal too much, I lowered my veil and walked away, trembling, my eyes unseeing.

I did not go home for a long time. I walked by the shore until the ball of fire sank wearily into the dark water. The hills had a beaten look, the sea an oppressive flatness. A gull's cry wept in me.

Alone...alone... I was much more alone.

Alone in my library, I opened the box Aesop had given me and removed his fox, lion, donkey, raven and frog. He had moulded them for me. Two were made of light-colored clay, others of dark. They were as highly glazed as scarabs. I arranged them on a shelf above my desk and could feel my friend's presence, as though he were beside me.

But there would be no more letters.

No visit!

Lighting my lamp, I began my ode to "The Friend of Man."

I knew Alcaeus would be as disturbed as I.

I expected him to roar, "The mob!" Instead, he bowed his head, his hands on his lap, and remained silent. Slowly, he clenched his fists and gouged them into his thighs. Muscles corded his arms and swelled as he stood.

"He should have come here, to us!"

"He was sick, Alcaeus."

"Then I should have gone to him! Why was I doubly blind? I knew he was under attack for opposing the aristocrats."

Round and round, back and forth, we talked: what might have been, what should have been:

"If he had gone to Athens, he would have been safe with Solon."

"If only he could have stayed in Corinth..."

And remembering what a friend Aesop had been to us, he said:

"He knew I liked bread from that oven of Stexos... He was always bringing me my favorite wine."

"He couldn't do enough, that time I got so sick. The best doctors, he..."

"Wild boar, to help you get strong."

We recounted the fables, their Persian origin, the circumstances of their telling. How he loved travelers, especially from the East.

I see Aesop on his balcony, the wind making him blink his eyes; he has on dark blue trousers, yellow sash and gold blouse and carries his doll and is smiling and nodding.

Was it his profound understanding of life that made such a difference? He showed breadth of mind at all times. Revealing human character through animal traits, he taught us the comedy of our faults and aspirations.

Alcaeus has begun writing letters, to protest against this outrage in Adelphi, to alert friends, to cry out.

High on a hill, I sit and stare at my bare feet and try to guess how many steps they have taken.

I peer at my legs and consider the color and texture of my skin. I rub my hands over my knees and ankles.

What of Phaon's feet, the rigging they have climbed and the decks they have walked?

Storms have crashed over him. He has held his ship to sun and stars, legs spread wide, feet on the planking.

Does the sea mean so much to him? Is it his woman?

As I watch the arrival of boats in the bay, the unloading at the dock, I keep remembering his brown face.

The rains have begun.

They flood across the mosaic floor of the courtyard, draining noisily.

I am weaving a scarf, very white, light in weight, my seat a strip of rawhide on four pegs.

Around me the girls sit and chatter. Heptha and Myra weave together, working at one loom, whispering. The rain and wind come together over the house. Laughing secretly, Atthis and Gyrinno dash off, padding through the rain, across the court.

Kleis unwinds my ball of thread and keeps paying it out slowly, rhythmically, her hands in time to a song she is humming to herself.

The white wool is restful. I can weave nothingness or I can weave in my whole past, the sea, my house, the cliffs, the trees.

My fingers are Phaon's.