DUTY
We haven’t said anything yet
we have yet to sing our song.
The buzz of the parade stayed behind our voices
enclosed by a thousand doors when
people marched throwing their caps in the air
when the affluent trembled behind the windows
when our hearts were weighted among thousands
of other hearts
like a hurrah among thousands of red flags.
Then the salvo at dawn
scaring the sparrows from the cypresses
the lorries loaded with fighters
going to the place of execution
slicing the sun in two with their wheels.
They sealed our mouths, comrade;
we have yet to sing our song.
There is still plenty of dust left in the afternoon
left behind the black dresses of mothers
as we return from the Averof or Xatzikosta Streets
or the transit prison
the black mothers with their black dresses
with their hearts wrapped in their kerchiefs
like the leftover bread that even death can’t chew.
They locked up our mouths, comrade,
they turned off our sun
we have yet to sing our song,
the one that started simply, powerfully, sadly:
proletariat of the world, unite.
The shadow of a gigantic crutch appears on
on the Makronisos rock
during the night when a lawless, silent moon rises
on the horizon.
We have to build a ladder with this crutch, Vangelis
whispered in Peter’s ear,
as if he was whispering a verse of our future song.
We are late, comrade. We’re very late.
We have to sing our own song.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 