When the poet Robert Bly first saw the Greek island of Santorini (also called Thera), he said that it was depressing and dark. Almost no one else who has ever visited the volcanic island has reported that feeling. The beaches on the south of the island are glistening black sand. Not far from the beaches is the excavation of the Minoan city of Akrotiri. Disaster, romance, beauty and history are all gathered there. Bly is right that a trip to Santorini is more than a pleasure trip. Like Valentine's Day and like love, a visit there conjures up a variety of emotions.

I've always had a certain

Distrust of earthly beauty;

I would pull back a curtain

To show what was hid behind

As if that was my duty

To be the one not blinded

And to share that purity

Of vision, of purpose, but

When a cute couple came out

Of the surf onto the black

Sand beach at Santorini --

The waves breaking at their knees

Stalled while the guilty gulls shouted,

Winds whispered as they turned back

Like any silhouette on

A card tendering the cheap

Tenderness that turns creepy

(When the brain is set to "on")

And having been sold removes

The gold borders from "our love."

But they seemed to be above

That. To be, instead, 3-D

As if they could joke about

Their cliche while waves threaded

White foam between their dark knees,

As if wordless ecstasy

Was not just idiocy,

As if they might wade back out

Onto the exotic sand

To find a love so complex

And amazingly simple

That the old pull to touch hands

Becomes changed, charged like new sex,

Like falling onto the sand.

When we think, do we lose love?

Stop! The grit, cool night, and spray

All conspire to take away

Romance, to replace the tired

That seemed so new then withdrew

To something worn and well tried.

I pray they find a new way

To keep their Eden in view.

Who would not fall to desire,

Who has danced inside the fire?

Better a pillar of salt

That's seen paradise afar.

But angels with flaming swords

Cannot match the fear, the fault

Of growing trite, being bored.

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