Love revisited

Visiting Athens twenty years after the death of his Muse, the poet still felt the magical radiance of places of antiquity he felt for the first time, when he experienced its architecture and art, recalling a famous poem: "...and the whole temple sings." Settling down in the mild pre-spring sun at the Agora, he reflected about passages of his life that appeared to him in a spiritual discussion with his Muse; this historic place exerted such a great sense he could feel intensely.

Z J Galos: Born in eastern Austria, close to the Hungarian border, he experienced as a young man the horrors of a nation's suppression, erupting in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. He finished his education in art and architecture in Vienna, married, and sailed for the Cape of Africa, an adventure that followed his childhood dreams. He had drawn African animals for his art classes, but the time had come to see them in their natural habitat. Meeting a varied facet of people and cultures, working as a draughtsman in an engineering office, as an architect for a cultural centre, he made good use of his language skills travelling throughout Southern Africa. During a trip to Lesotho, a native artist showed him rock paintings with their stark palimpsest outlines and with typified movements of animals and humans. It made a lasting impression on him and influenced his artistic work. His vast collection of drawings and slides had been lost during a change of domiciles, but further studies of the San people reawakened his dormant artistic longing for expression of his art, filling sketchbooks with drawings and notepads with poetry and prose. While revisiting the capitals of Europe, he sensed that the bond of art being borderless and free, would reach out across continents into the world. During a visit to Greece, he was accepted into a circle of artists and poets, who encouraged him to continue his art and a friend introduced him to the works of famous Greek poets. In South Africa, he joined the writing and poetry workshops of Writers Write. It was to open the floodgates of his creativity. He decided to travel through Greece and visit its sites of antiquity, read up on Classical mythology, and enjoy first class translations of Greek poetry and prose. He settled 2013/14 in Klosterneuburg-Weidling. Poet Nikolaus Lenau is buried here. Franz Kafka had visited here. Their writings will always be an inspiration.