THE PANTOCRATOR AND THE DIXIE JEWEL

James Kerns

He was forty years old when he traded the Acropolis
For a clapboard cathedral in Mecklenburg County.
He'd put on the collar and joined the apostles
Six months after a bare-headed girl brought him
Lemonade while he cut circle in the April sun.
She was fresh as 20 springs, and he saw the Aegean
Crashing over the curve of her cheeks.
He was swift-footed Achilles racing through a southern town,
A dark-eyed storm pushing the swollen clouds before him.
The old world rolled off his tongue like licorice.
She spun through yellow sunshine in a gingham dress
With rain water hands and a smile that slipped over her teeth
Like star-shaped lilies opening in the twilight.
Round and round the ancient tsamiko they danced,
Her arm looped through his-- the smell of cut grass
And retsina settling their wild eyes into bars of honey.
On Sundays, he would leave her bed
To don the gold raiment of Byzantium,
And while he moved among the icons swinging incense
Out into the folds of his congregation,
He would praise God for the glories of Hellas--
And the ivory arms of a country girl.