DAWN
Water pitchers and baskets at daybreak
aluminum plates, tin cans
shadows of the night, cries under the wooden beds;
this night has passed too. The chaki soil,
the chaki tent, the chaki scarecrow,
patched up blankets and the sky.
White bed-sheets shivering at the dawn breeze —
who looks at them?
A wild olive tree leaf like a cloths peg on the cloths
line — who pays attention to it and
who will undo the cloths peg that holds the kerchief
of summer?
A white city with green window shutters is spread
behind the mountains
buzz of many lorries carrying workers,
sacks of cement and power poles.
There are faraway, we know, many women
embittered, taciturn who lean down
holding a needle as if holding a sun ray sewing
a big flag; windows turn rosy, freshly painted.
Dawn.
A cat, out in the field, is playing
with the lemon cup of the moon.
No, we aren’t tired at all. We aren’t thirsty.
We changed our shirt, our light-blue shirt of dawn,
we shaved, where are we headed?
The white city spreads behind the mountains
where women sew the big flag.
Good morning
the forced labour starts.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 