Crete

From the sea to the south, a sleeping lion.
The mighty muscles rippling beneath its tawny flanks
sweep down to the water;
its long, humped spine is white with snow. 

From the air, a strange, ruined longboat,
its prow to the west, thrusting towards Sicily,
an upright helmsman clinging to its stern in the east,
and Akrotiri Lathinos at the point of its great keel. 

On the ground, a landscape broken, fissured,
tortured into mountains and crevasses, cracks and caves,
a place for hiding and escape,
where the eagle soars in the lonely air. 

It is a land built for myth and legend,
where the infant Zeus was hidden from his murderous father,
the child-devouring Kronos,
as the Kouretes masked his cries with clashing spears . 

At Knossos, Theseus slew the Minotaur
which roamed the labyrinth great Minos built;
today, the ruined palace lies in state,
its wealth and power echoing still through time.