Retreat to Loutro by Andrew Shephard

Loutro, on the island of Crete, is only accessible by ferryboat (from Sfakia, half an hour along the coast) making it an ideal place for a writing retreat. I travelled there in hope of making headway with a novel which had become stuck at the two-thirds point. The environment, the tavernas, the tutor Lucy Christopher, and my retreat companions worked some magic. The cloud of stuckness started to pour words like heavy rain after a dry spell.  These poems also appeared, one under a tree on long hot walk, the other on the balcony of my room after a long hot night.

On the hill above Loutro

On the hill above Loutro

a blind Venetian ruin

guards the trade of ghost ships.

A rock to sweat and breathe

solitary shade

lonely olive tree.

But not alone.

Goat shapes to scarper

downgrades the threat

decides to share my pool of cool.

His settling starts a song,

top line soft clang ripple.

Cicadas drive the rhythm,

bass, the breeze in my ears.

On drums, the sea

keeps a jazzy beat,

tipping the hi-hat

in the bluesy bay below.

Alarm

Humidity sticks mountain dust

to tiled floor.

Sheet tangles

air drains liquid,

pins body to bed.

 

You are not sleeping

You are not sleeping

You are not sleeping

Collared dove call

soft insistence to abandon sleep.

Arm reaches for snooze,

thought almost dreams.

A storm is coming

A storm is coming

A storm is coming

Stumble to shutters.

Curtain draws a sky

clear and blue as Cretan sea.

Days repeat like dove’s call

until, out of the blue,

clouds sneak over mountain,

spill relieving drops into

breakfast orange juice.

The retreats are organised each June by Espirita, a not-for-profit cultural travel organisation. It worked for me.