BELOW THE HULL: STRAVROS NIARCHOS

Enjoy the Mediterranean light before sunset.

Talk among the crashing waves with equal abandon.

Dive in the sea with architect friends.

Why not enjoy both worlds of land and water at the edge of Athens?

I depart from the present on the ship;

travel the stairs to dinner,

hold woodgrain rail for balance.

I ran back to the upper deck of the Stavros Niarchos

in time to draw sailboats cruising on.

The waves are strong and full, 

reaching Piano's building;

Athen’s investment in the numbing sea, 

book volumes shift, swell, sink.

Find the ladder, slide it over,

reach the uppermost books before the hull cracks.

Library shelves float already on the perimeter; 

glass rails are invisible.

In both a library and a theater, the music rooms are alive 

with silence. Ensconced in the red velvet seats, 

every door opening surprises the senses, 

delightful, polished, curving wood. 

In the ballerina's box, the dancers unfold themselves, 

crane animals about to fly.

Smooth, not slick, like walking over a wave-crusted beach,

step aboard, the marble floor is sand.

The glass cantilever, the boom, extends the craft:

Five stories perched between the city and sea docks. 

What the water offers as new life, the building gives too.

Siggrou Avenue is the deck; 

the Greek street lifts at the bow and meets the water.

A building never visited becomes familiar. 

Everyone sees the ocean the same way, running to meet the waves. 

Over the port of Piraeus, the wire pulleys hold down the sail. 

The lines clank as the building moves -the sea view!

The aquamarine sky floats just below the surface. 

Cruising below the ship's vessel, 

the roof is the glistening white hull. 

There is great joy in finding the architect's secret. 

The Piano Workshop gave Athens a new building, 

a new Agora to mimic a cruise liner. 

I arrive at the upper deck and my friend grabs the rail, 

her long sun-streaked hair blowing to realize:  

This building is sailing.

-Kellie Cole

Kellie Cole is a licensed architect practicing in West Virginia who teaches architecture at Fairmont State University. Kellie's poetry has been published in Whetstone, Fairmont State University's publication, Voices From the Attic, and River and Stone Anthology of Short Stories.