More on Cyprus from the International Herald Tribune: "Unofficially, Turkish Cyprus hails invading Greeks." The dateline is Kyrenia, the beautiful seaside city on the north coast of the island. Now for the first time in a generation Greeks and Turks are mingling freely here:

Kyrenia has not kept count, but every day the cafés along the harbor have been full of Greeks, eating, drinking, laughing. Turks have joined them as though there never was a war that tore them apart. Overnight, the Jewel of the Levant, as it was known in ancient times, has been jolted from its languid ways.

One senses that the huge surge in popular support for a united Cyprus is creating a momentum with which the leaders of the two communities will have to try mightily to keep up:

The flood of people has overtaken the long-term projects of politicians and diplomats who have agonized about reuniting the island with orderly plans, only to see them fail time after time. Among the unresolved questions is the issue of how to deal with the huge economic gap between the poor Turkish north and the rich Greek south.

This is the sort of thing that brings tears to my eyes:

It is hard to tell who is more excited, the Turks or the Greeks. Some Greek families said they had spent the night in their cars at the checkpoint in the buffer zone, afraid to lose their place in line. Now they were telling their life stories to perfect strangers in the harbor cafes.

Kyrenians seemed eager to listen. "We are all in a dream, in a state of shock," said Ayla Djemal, whose Turkish family had just made friends with Greeks arriving from the southern port of Limassol. "It's marvelous," she said. "Our lives were far apart, but we all shared the same dividing wall."

But naturally there are more poignant moments:

Beneath the goodwill and newfound fraternity, though, other, less visible emotions linger. For instance, Soulla and Irini Mathiti, two Greek sisters, came back to Kyrenia after visiting a small village in the mountains.

When their family fled south in the war, their father, an Orthodox priest, insisted on staying, refusing to abandon his church and his flock. He was never seen again.

This week, for the first time, his daughters returned to his little church, now a mosque. The imam heard them sobbing. He apologized and embraced them, then he led them to a small room in the mosque.

''He gave us my father's books. He gave us his Bible," said Soulla. Now, the sisters said, they could mourn their father at last.

Many years ago I wrote a poem dedicated to Cyprus, and I will post it here at some point. KALH NYXTA CAC.