Songs from Lost and Found

There are many Pano Horas (“Upper Villages”). One, on the island of Syros, is the birthplace of the great rebetiko composer and bouzouki player, Markos Vamvakaris. Another lies in the foothills of Mount Taygetos, in a place called Vordonia, of bygone medieval grandeur, where today one encounters the occasional aroma of oregano, the sound of crickets, and the distant spectacle of cypress trees projecting up from an open plain. Still, another lies in a canyon in the Front Range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, where red rock, sage, hawks, pumas and yellow finches abound. The keeper of a Lost & Found located in one of these many Upper Villages, location unknown, left the following message, which I pass along to you, together with the contents of the Lost & Found he tended: “People come to Pano Hora and then disappear, but sometimes leave behind songs, which is why we need a Lost & Found. We will never know how each of the songs became lost. Perhaps the author slipped on a rock, dazed by the beauty around him, or became confused by what he encountered and left the song behind absent mindedly. In any case, these songs are now yours to keep or lose.”

Charles Calomiris,

Pano Hora, Colorado

September 2022