Greek Woman, Corfu

Today I swam with a woman
who sang to the seagulls

she sang of midnight
she sang of poverty
she sang of fear
she sang to the sea.

Today I swam with a woman who sang of the broken.

She sang to the sparrows
and she sang to me.

She sang of winter, of hunger and starving.
She sang of sorrow, she sang of greed.
She sang of hope, the fallen, the dying.

Today she sang her song to me.

She sang of the spring that lives in her island
she sang of its wars, its people, its famines.

She sang of Athens, soup kitchens, hunger
of people queuing for food from Crete —
onions tomatoes bread and water.
She sang to the seagulls she sang to me.

She sang her song of cleaners and soldiers
she sang of the sailors, the driven, the hopeless
she sang of her sisters and brothers and poets
mothers of children whose lives hold no future.

She sang her song of the sea to me.

She sang of workers unpaid for their labour
she sang of shipyards, of builders and teachers
whose spirits were crushed, whose lives lay in pieces
she sang of her country she sang of the free.

UK poet Dr. Geraldine Green is a freelance creative writing tutor, mentor and visiting lecturer at The University of Cumbria.

Her collections are: The Skin and Passio Flarestack Pubications, Poems of a Mole Catcher’s Daughter under the pseudonym of Katie A Coyle, Palores Publications and The Other Side of the Bridge by Indigo Dreams. This latest collection formed part of her PhD in Creative Writing: An Exploration of Identity and Environment through Poetry. Her next collection Salt Road will be published summer 2013, also by Indigo Dreams. www.indigodreamsbookshop.com/#/geraldine-green/4565286878

Her poetry has been widely anthologised in the UK, US and Italy and translated into German and Romanian. Geraldine frequently performs her poetry in the US. She’s an Associate Editor of Poetry Bay www.poetrybay.com