"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. "
Corinthians 13:2
We are tiny.
The caldera off Santorini
was formed about 3600 years
before the present era...
The huge Minoan eruption
in the 17th century BC
might have inspired
the legend of Atlan-
tis.
So looking at the landscape
from the top of Oia
one can only wonder
how our flesh
and bones and blood
can last
for 50 odd years
and more,
which makes al-
most a cen-
tury...
And how amazing
is love chemist-
ry,
although
it does not last
as long as the caldera,
not even as long
as one's life.
Time.
This ener-
gy
is given to us
to go on with the human race.
To be human!
That's the thing.
All the rest is just strings...
You may paint and sing,
but if you mean to destroy and kill...
How extraor-
dinary
life can be
and how inexpli-
cably
the good and evil
are interwoven in you and me,
in all of us.
Fascists would burn other people
in an o-
ven
and then went to listen to
Beatho-
ven.
The new Rus-
sians
go hun-
ting
and then -
to the Bolshoy
with their new chil-
dren
leaving the previous ones
by ex-wives
behind,
in their home
as if they just don't exist
at all.
While on the island
of Spina-
longa,
here, off Crete,
there was a leper colo-
ny...
And the leper people
lived there happi-
ly.
They didn't have to
hide
in the caves
and nobo-
dy
was throwing stones at them -
just no-
bo-
dy.
They were taken care of,
got married
and had child-
ren,
most of whom
were normal healthy peo-
ple.
Leper is not an ancient disease,
(today there are still 11, 000,000
leper people in the world)
neither is it
contagious...
It comes like cancer,
out of nowhere,
nobody knows the rea-
sons or
has the answer...
But the thing is -
here, on Spinalonga,
those peo-
ple
were protec-
ted and cared for.
They didn't want
to go back
to the big world anymore.
So, however tiny we are,
we are human
and then
no calde-
ras
or other earth forma-
tions
can match
us,
because
we can love.
We were born
with no claws or fangs,
therefore
we had to develop
our brains
to protect ourselves
from wild life
in this treacherous world.
But developing brain
was not enough,
we're nothing
if we don't love...
July 13-14, 2015
From my CRETA POEM
Crete, Agios Nikolaos,
inspired by the conversations with Sofia Kalomenidou
and with compliments to El Greco hotel and its owner YIANNIS DANDOULAKIS