Cinco islas

Each stop on the journey has a foothold on land, arms outstretched to the sky, and eyes fixed on the sea. Five islands and as many women of classical Greece seek in this volume of poetic prose the anchor of the past, the impetus of the present, and the promise of the future. All and always under the call of Ithaca. Perhaps our destiny, Ithaca, the most Homeric of all islands, is a ship, an arm of the sea, a shoal, a reef, a storm. Also, shipwreck. Perhaps destiny is to traverse it from port to starboard, from bow to stern, from its vortex to its depths. To pass sideways through the channel, to turn one's head so as not to see it, to round the rope, to rest for a moment in its lap, to set the sails to the wind, to delay the return to port.