The Winds Of Troodos Poem by Bill Mitton

THE WINDS OF TROODOS
Sometimes when least expected I feel you
The scent of Pine resin hits my nostrils and memory
and for a short while I sense you dancing at my back
Welcoming and cool in the long warm days
Chilling to the bone in the dark frightening nights
Then once more I am standing against a Landscape
painted in beauty, yet coloured in hate and cruelty
once again you carry the smell of fear in your flow
and in that one night the world opened its hand
to show me the ugliness and horror of humanity lost.
Then your sound became a cry of agony and anguish
to cut and scar a young soul for the rest of its days.
So that even now, in the small hours, my soul cries
In the knowing, that down the years the horror grew less
with each terrible repeated painting of the scene.
Now, with hair as white as that, which caps your peaks
and my years written in deep lines across my face.
I remember the Easter Dawn at Kykkos Monastery
the alter with the crown of thorns and folded cloth
which brought such soothing to a frightened youth
there, for a little while, your moan became a prayer
Yet still today, within the dark hours, I pray in shame
asking forgiveness for a heart that learned to hardened.