Sv. Martin

The old path from Milna to Bobovisca climbs from the sea 240 meters in
about two kilometers, then drops over 100 in the last one. For 400
years, before the modern road was constructed 35 or 40 years ago
re-routing the way, it was the main path to Milna. Like all of the old
ways, it was ruggedly built of native rock exclusively for foot use by
man and donkey. Bounded by walls of stacked stone a meter or more thick,
flanked by olive and almond, today it climbs narrow eroding causeways,
crowded by prickly rosemary and Christ's thorn, or opens into wide
plazas of parched and unclipped grass and rock. It is perhaps not too
difficult a walk, except in summer under the searing Dalmatian sun,
without shade, when the heat becomes intolerable.

Two-thirds of the way from Milna, at the summit of the path, grandly
overlooking rocky hills, valleys, villages, an islanded sea, and the
mainland, lies the small stone church of Svej Martin. Sv. Martin sits
solitary in a bare earth square bounded by low, stone walls. One of the
island's pre-Romanesque chapels, it has stood there for over a thousand
years. For centuries before it, on the same spot, stood an unknown Roman
shrine. And still earlier, this site as sacred to the Illyrians. (On the
clearance piles below the church you may still find fragments of Roman
amphora and pre-historic tile.)

Inside, Sv. Martin is plastered white, with a barreled vault and
semi-circular aspe, and perhaps half-a dozen tiny 'blind arcades.' On
the small, variegated marble altar stands a stone sculpture of Martin
himself, astride his horse, caught forever in the very moment of
shearing his cloak for the beggar-Christ. A Mary and child look on. The
sculpted stone has blackened over the centuries from candle smoke and
Sv. Martin's sword, presumably broken off and lost somewhen in time, has
been replaced by one neatly cut from sheet aluminum.

Outside, the air is alive with the sound of cicadas from a tiny stand of
pine, (Hermes Stand, as I call it – but that's another story) and the
whoosh of yugo or bura winds across the landscape. Perhaps a church bell
peals in Milna or Bobovisca; perhaps a sheep or donkey sounds.

In my mind, however, Sv. Martin stands in a sort of brilliant
dream-time, it's fundamental silence broken only by a single, sharp
clink of shard on stone.

So Sv. Martin's revelation in dream, where the slice of the sword on
fabric is the sound of tile on stone, and the beggar is all men and is
Christ.

Back in the shade of Hermes Stand, taking a cool drink of water, looking
beyond my island, I see Hvar, Vis, Solta, Split and there – that tiny
bump on the horizon– the rock Jabuka (the Apple) juts from the bare sea
half-way – so I'm told - to Italy.