In June/July 2021, Jenn, our two kids, and my brother Peter were lucky enough to visit Greece between the country’s covid travel restrictions lifting and the extreme heat and wildfires later that summer.
Instead of island-hopping, we rented a car and drove along the coast of the Peloponnese peninsula. We kayaked in Kardamyli, gave names to dozens of street kitties in Hydra, watched Euro Cup games at crowded outdoor tables in Athens, and chased a thieving ferret away from my plate of shrimp Saganaki at the old fortress city of Monemvasia.
During the annual theater festival at the ancient theater of Epidaurus, we watched a production of “Iphigenia in Tauris” from the very back row, mesmerized by the procession of the chorus as the singing women took the stages in white robes, carrying candles and singing complex harmonies that date back to the 5th century B.C.
On the last night of our trip, we drove out to the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, which my parents had visited while they were expecting me, joking around about naming me either Zeus or Poseidon. Watching the sun set beside the same ruins 40 years later gave me a profound sense of coming full circle, and being able to travel internationally after a year+ of lockdown felt like a small miracle. As the glowing orb of Helios disappeared from sight, the group of tourists scattered along the rocks broke into spontaneous applause.
As an encore to this trip, we recently published a series of mythology-inspired haiku written that summer by our daughter, Ruby. It seemed fitting to share these poems on Kawsmouth, the arts/lit site we launched in 2012 just a few weeks before she was born.
At the time of writing these, Ruby was 9 years old and had spent the previous year reading Greek myths from different sources, starting with the classic D’aulaire’s anthology, which is a great place to start for a kid who is interested in Greek myths. She quickly became an expert on Greek Mythology, talking about its heroes and villains like those of any other book series.
Ruby made illustrated biographical profiles of Goddesses like Athena and Hestia, wrote 15 chapters of a book about a girl who discovers she’s the daughter of Aphrodite, and even drew some cute comics starring Cerberus. She’d occasionally mention having dreams about or feeling sympathy for unfairly maligned figures like Medusa, whose monstrous fate was all Poseidon’s fault (thank goodness her dad wound up with a different name in the end).
In these poems, presented with Ruby’s permission and guidance, she expertly captures the flawed nature and tragicomic dilemmas of the Gods and the mortals whose lives they impact. And there are a couple of bonus haiku here, too—one about her cherubic cousin Abel and another about the cuteness of kitties. It’s a bit of a departure from the classic texts, and I’m hardly an unbiased editor in this case, but I think the muses would approve.
lucas wetzel 