L'éphé-mer
By Grace Koumaras
James Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights (1872)
Poet’s Note: The title of this poem comes from the French word "éphémère", meaning ephemeral or of a short-lived nature.
My original inspiration for this piece was the song “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others” by The Smiths, particularly the lyrics
“As Antony said to Cleopatra
As he opened a crate of ale
Oh, I say
Some girls are bigger than others.”
When paired with the melancholic guitar rift, it always felt like I was being welcomed home, despite being a moment that passed so long ago in antiquity. Of course, I can’t just write a poem on The Smiths, but I have felt this strange pull before, during my return to Cape Sounion’s Temple. If you're familiar with the myth, Cape Sounion marks the spot where King Aegeus jumped into the sea mistakenly believing that his son Theseus had died, hence the name: the Aegean Sea.
You've probably noticed this piece’s title is different from the original spelling. It’s more than just a typo, so please no grammar lectures pour le moment. By removing an accent and a letter, l’éphémère becomes “l’éphé-mer”, mer meaning “the sea”. Like The Smiths, “L'éphé-mer” captures a missed call from home, and combines the permanent and the temporal to create a fleeting feeling of being found. One final French note: mayflies are also known as “les éphémères” due to their infamously short life span. After they reach adulthood, they have about a day or so to truly live. With all that said, this is l'éphé-mer.
Under the comfort of the cot’s duvet,
the dreamy guitar chords pervaded the cavern and ebbed
like the neighboring cove.
Echoes, acoustics, and amplification alike,
each breath and note suspended by the anticipation of drifting into another afternoon slumber.
Entombed in layers, sheets, and garments alike–
an almost mummified girl protected by her pillow and canopic
stuffed animals.
The lyric’s faint voice was drowned out by the rain drearily clapping against the window as if
it itself was also plagued.
She wasn’t sick or dying–no, just tired.
Since the marooned house plants had mutinied and
held the decorative Ionic column hostage,
demanding her fleeting attention,
only to be scrutinized by Artemis’ cold, marble gaze.
In a silencing harmony, all voices rang with the reminder of her failed pilgrimage and ached for
the devotion that they required.
Though, in her defense, she hadn’t failed–rather forgotten.
Her satin pillow chambers collected the dreams like shells sans-abri.1
Brought to her ear, she could hear the distant call of the submerged world she’d long–
In front of the sunlit Sounion temple,
I lapped and leisured in the shallow waters adorning the sea’s ruins.
To me, it was the city of summers and dreams,
my refuge from headmasters and their rituals.2
I swam closer to the warm evening lights,
as I walked from the shore, the beads of sweat and water lifted from their vessel–
leaving a dewy glow and a sponged mind.
The sea’s foam layered with the salted drops of exertion and exhaustion to form a shapeless
garment of pearls, lace, and the water’s soft embrace.
I followed to where the sand met cobblestone streets and winded through the town,
a tempo
with my slowing pulse.
The smells of cooking, the salted air, the distant hum of music at the taverna–
everything beckoning for me to finally rest.
But my feet demanded a further voyage.
Once again,
I found myself where sand and cobblestone bled together.
But as I climbed its path,
I only then realized that the waves had lost their crescendo and began to chuchotent in the
temple’s shadow.
Only at the path’s peak could I truly hear the wave’s eternal whispers and murmurs,
each breath and pause–
hesitating and pushing like an apathetic mother’s sigh.
Trembling in their stupor, my feet lost their marching bravado and
quietly sank in the swelling sand.
The wind’s hand pushed the small of my back forward, seemingly demanding a bow of respect,
I gazed at the worn leather sandals,
defeated by the path’s labyrinth after narrowly escaping stones, cracks, and blocked paths.
The ephemeral sunlight yielded and extended the dominating shadows,
swallowing everything below.
My gaze chased the last of its fragments,
like an ivrogne looking for something they can’t quite place anywhere–
except for the bottom of the bottle.3
Drinking up every last drop of the site’s Doric aesthetics and appearance,
reminiscing of my first visit seven years ago, when I first learned to ask for more.
Nevertheless,
despite the temple being isolated in the stray corner of this former empire,
my mind’s need to wander outweighed the weariness setting in,
as the sun’s rays stretched their muscles before one last stroke in the Aegean Sea.
A seagull dipped languorously from wave to wave in its boundless flight.
Its only weight in life was the slight pouch it gained from indulging
in the coastal fish and local scraps.
Its soft, hedonistic wing caressed the water.
Pushing itself against the wind and the water’s rush,
it flew shore-lessly and surely.
But in my gluttonous parade up the temple’s path, I rarely thought and was only made an
instrument of the guiding marionette strings.
Stringendo
plucking and pulling a hallowed, restless corps.
||: Search for the next step’s footing, down on three, up on one and two, and– :|| 4
A white magnolia bloomed as the moonlight too danced with the whirring pearl and lace,
and conducted its own soft, sadistic pace.
As I followed the footprints of the traveler who came before,
my mind wandered and wondered as the kicked-up dirt formed an empty tome.
The warm string symphony of crickets swelled as I pushed through the last of the wild grass.
Here–it was something, something I once had? No something I’d long–
Crescendo.
At nighttime,
the Sounion Temple was a patron to the lonely.
Its demolished halls, eroded paintings, and the missing statue’s soul were all resurrected by the
moon’s grace.
Hiding their scars and destruction,
they were returned to their former glory.
The warm blue-gray hue of the first summer night embraced the Temple’s delicate frame as the
sea gently lapped at the skyline.
The withered brush’s decayed arms reached upwards–as if they too wanted to invoke the
Temple’s splendor, to come alive once more.
Stirring, the soft, broken pattern of the ruins awoke from their slumber,
yawning as it expelled its aches.
As if it was veiled in soft, silken linens, the pillar’s fragile form peaked from under.
Her limestone slip danced at her feet, draped by the a-line marble silhouette.
The column, comme une coquette, charmed me with her subtle gaze and reserved features.5
Enamored and pulled in by her grandeur, I walked to her base.
The empty hall whispered words of worship, victory, and greatness,
all once attainable.
And this was the reason that she waited for me.
To come back to bed.
To be whole.
Abandoned by her followers,
betrayed and purposeless.
Stripped of herself and pride.
She never wanted restoration.
What was the point when her world was gone?
Every day, a new lover crossed her path.
Men from her home, men from afar, men from childhood, gawking and ogling,
proclaiming her overwhelming beauty.
Each one falsely believing their time with her is different from the man next to them,
naively thinking they're different.
For a brief moment,
each would promise to dedicate his life to her.
Devoting precious seconds of their mere mortal lives.
They praised and lavished her with posts, photos, pictures–
celebrating that they basked in her presence and beauty.
But when the sun reached its highest point and began its descent,
they would all leave just the same.
That’s how my ritualistic rendez-vous with her came to be.
My sanctuary, my courtesan, my temple.
It was a night like this one when we first met.
I had left the site in the early afternoon but in my slumber,
I could hear her distant weeping in my dreamy haze.
She sat alone on her cliff,
peering at the rough sea below.
Longing to crumble and melt into nothingness.
Her facade had worn and her soft archaic marrow loosely came undone.
A warm sigh echoed down my nape.
Guilt grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me from the cot.
The loose sandals flew off and my bare feet desperately chased the dirt path.
Small golden orbs harmoniously migrated from the wild brush.
Crowding my paraded body,
giving shape and a warm glow to the limp nightgown.
Whatever compelling force I felt had deserted me as soon as I crossed the Temple’s threshold.
The golden orbs dispersed and ornamented themselves on the columns
and formed strings of light overhead.
Nestling in my hair and delicately arranging themselves on my neck and wrists,
their small translucent tear-dropped bodies reminded me of my first summers at my cousin’s
Pennsylvanian home, chasing and capturing the elusive fireflies at dusk.
They softly clicked and hummed a jovial tune,
inviting and celebrating–
A rondeau.6
But still,
I knew the demands of fate,
I leaned on her sea-facing pillar.
Her cool marble eased my thoughts as she stroked my back gently and carefully.
The morning fog lazily rolled in,
unplagued by the impending ennui of the day.7
Garish pinks and oranges beamed through the cracks and bled through my summer dream.
Lifting my rosy fingertips to spare a moment,
they faltered and the light entered.
In that brief moment,
I could see the whole shore with my sea glass kaleidoscope.
The smells of morning cooking floated to the cape’s peak
and I could hear faint voices from the bottom of the trail.
Unbothered and bored,
waiting for the Temple to open her heart to them.
Upturned and gazing at the cruel blue sky,
harsher than any dusk I’ve seen,
the reflected fragments of the sea bounced and cavorted
waiting for the restless morning swimmers.
If I turned around,
I knew she’d be gone.
Her exterior had been hardening and the music had dissolved into a diminuendo
until it had reached a–
For my dream was her.
And in her absence,
I wake.
The once decadent fireflies were now distorted and dull,
yet their small, failing bodies swarmed the pillar and granted just one more moment.
In a fleeting glance,
their hard shells and bulbs corroded and crumbled, their dying breaths suspending them midair.
But even then,
they transformed and gave shape one last time.
Their soft wings and delicate tails unfurled like funerary sails in a final metamorphosis,
catching the sun rays in the transparent sea.
Mayflies.
Les éphémères.
Beacons of loss and beauty guiding to the true world.
Is there such a truth?
No, it was all just the same as before.
And so,
I followed the corpse procession.
There was no dance or waltz,
just the rhythm of a stagnant beating heart.
The path was already warm from the morning sun
and I could feel the soles of my feet burning with disdain.
A low hum escaped from my parched lips and was lost to the coastal winds,
only to hear its faint echo swaying in and out.
I couldn’t return to her–not this time.
And so,
I walked until the land met the sea.
At the top of her cliff,
I peered at the smooth sea below.
The mayflies,
dutifully answering the call back home,
one by one,
rained onto the aching Aegean sea.
All while the waves welcomed the same grief and longing
as eternalized by the same myth from so many years ago.
Whispering and waiting–
as if I had never left.
1. Without shelter, without home
2. The Smiths. The Headmaster Ritual. Meat Is Murder, Rough Trade Records, 1985.
3. Drunkard
4. Sheet music: repeat section
5. Like a flirt, seductress
6. A French poem set to music, Baroque
7. Boredom, inertia