Steve Cranfield
Eftalou
Just us two + abt 36 newly arrived refugee women children men today 11.30 on beach below Eftalou Lesvos
August 10, 2015
@Steve_Cranfield
Known for its nine interlinking bays,
and used extensively by naturists,
the beach at Eftalou, ‘all pebbles, no
facilities’, still made for ‘a wonderful
setting … very peaceful and relaxing’,
according to the websites. That morning
a young German woman (textile), the only
other visitor to the bay, bar the odd
Ottoman viper and scorpion,
approached us and inquired, ‘What’s happening?’
We told her (naked) it was the first dinghy
of the day, expect to see another eight
before the afternoon’s out. We wondered
what women stepping ashore in hijabs
would make of two naked men. Perhaps, though,
they had other priorities. The Turkish
smuggler on this side who met the boat
left us in no doubt as he slashed the dinghy
and retrieved the outboard motor for its
next consignment, cursing us from afar,
and waving what looked like a buck knife.
He vanished as quickly as he’d arrived.
A young man, smartly dressed, asked us the way
in English to the nearest transit camp.
He and some thirty others then set off
westwards to Molyvos but not before
they’d checked their mobiles for a signal, shucked
the blue-and-orange Onar life vests. (Onar
means ‘dream’ in ancient Greek, we were told.)
Other tourists, mainly the English, muttered
about holidays being spoiled, or if
they must make the crossing, pick another beach.
All fell silent as we passed the convoys
of men carrying infants in their arms
in the blistering heat, we in coaches
that were air-conditioned and half-full at most.
That day I tweeted an unpeopled photo:
‘On beach at Eftalou Lesvos. Each
life jacket tells a story.’ It garnered
two retweets, one like. A drop in the ocean.
Steve Cranfield is a London (UK) based poet whose work has appeared since the late 1980s in one collection, anthologies and magazines in the UK and USA. Co-translations of contemporary Spanish poets have appeared in Poetry London, Ambit, Buenos Aires Poetry and The Selected Poetry of Francisco Brines, Of Purest Blue (Get A Grip, 2010).