Lefkaritiki
Posted on | July 13, 2012 | 4 Comments
When we returned from Cyprus we got out the old tablecloth my grandmother had bought there ninety years ago and admired its intricate lacework. It had new depth and meaning now that we had discovered the history and craft of the lacework made in Lefkara — the Lefkaritiki. In the past few weeks it has come to symbolize much of the loss of memory almost all families suffer because we don’t ask enough questions as children, don’t tell enough as adults. We live in an age distorted by traumatic memory and consumed by triviality because the memory of craft, awe, and beauty has been forgotten.
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We didn’t ask
my grandmother
about the tablecloth,
its lacework
filigreed upon the table.
We couldn’t hear…
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4 Responses to “Lefkaritiki”
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William J. Everett
In my teaching career I authored eight books and numerous articles in social ethics and religion. After over thirty years of academic work — in Germany, India, and South Africa as well as in the United States — I wanted to turn my hand to a poetically written novel to probe the issues of ecological and human reconciliation.
When I am not writing, I create furniture for worship settings. For more about my work, go to www.WisdomsTable.net, where you will also find galleries of artwork by my wife Sylvia, whose ancestors were the original inspiration for Red Clay, Blood River. READ MORE...
TURNINGS: Poems of Transformation
Like works in
wood upon a lathe, these poems are word-turnings that reveal the inner grain of our human experience. They are bowls to catch our turnings of memory, conversion, falling in love, and passing through our seasons and the wrenching turns that mark our lives. Above all these turnings are a shout of praise, a murmur of wonder, a turning away from life as usual, a merciful re-turning to the songs, images and stories that move our lives.
You can get TURNINGS at:
For More on TURNINGS:
Red Clay Blood River
Red Clay, Blood River is a story told by Earth about two brothers from Germany and an enslaved South African woman whose lives bind together America’s “Trail of Tears” and South Africa’s simultaneous “Great Trek” of 1838. You can get Red Clay, Blood River at:
Booklocker--also in ebook version (PDF)In South Africa at: www.Loot.co.za and www.Kalahari.net
July 13th, 2012 @ 10:33 am
Thanks, Bill, for your wonderful accounts of your visit and the concluding poem. Glad to know you are home safe and sound.
July 13th, 2012 @ 10:51 am
What an enjoyable piece! Your imagination makes the experience come alive. Thanks! – Ken
July 14th, 2012 @ 7:24 am
Big thanks, Bill. I feel like I’ve been a bird on your shoulder, going back in time and learning history I knew nothing about. You have an amazing gift to help us see the past and to ask the right questions. I have a collection of old tablecloths so I especially appreciated the poem.
Why is it that we “wake up” too late and our ancestors who knew the answers are gone?
Welcome home, Penny
July 14th, 2012 @ 6:09 pm
Bill, your travel notes were excellent, showing all the trademarks of carefully researched preparation, respect for the traditions of the people, openness to the chance encounter, and perseverance in what you were looking for. It may well be the family trip of a lifetime for you. Now about that position as ambassador to resolve the differences between the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots, although that task may be somewhat eschatological . . .
My sister and her husband just spent a couple weeks in Greece, just because they thought it would be an interesting place. While it was expensive, it did not solve Greece’s financial problems.
Ken