Gown
Your gown touches the ground
outline of your body
visible delicious and ethereal
breeze voraciously besieges your legs
dictating their every move
and I want to build a church
to match your angelic shape
an altar to erect
atop the inviting space
designed by your thighs
point of reverence
for the upcoming generations
an icon to place high up
where the anger subsides
and your mound stands
unerring judge of both
the dead and the alive
VI
How many times it dawned in Greece
before I was born
after my death
how many times the rosy color
and the old woman with the vegetables
in the metro to the sea at Phaliro.
How many times Brallos
kept on being white
in the winter morning
stone different from other stone
first surprise, as I return
from abroad thirsty and
I haven’t discovered the language
of my own things.
How many times
it was dawning in Greece
with the few, the small
the meagre
the bitter almond tree and the amaranthus
with all the wrong things I learned
with everything I imprudently loved.
Dawn
I live here and I long
for this same landscape
as if I miss it
with each glance
BIT BY BIT
Bit by bit we learn the world and our hearts
we try a word that weights equally on all lips
like the word mother
like the word bread
like the word comrade.
We dress broad beans and peel potatoes
we carry rocks and water
we take turns in cleaning the toilets and
we push the cart with our tiredness uphill.
For this our hands have the same movement
they grope for the silence and death during the night
they coil in fists inside the pockets
they study the lines of a rifle
as they once studied the body of a woman
they tie themselves on the mast of the flag
like they suckled their mother’s breast.
For this our eyes meet at the same spot gazing
at the sea
as if we had no water for three or more days
and the water truck isn’t coming
and patience bites its hands.
At that time the same angry ship passes through
every eye
a ship we know well
loaded with water pitchers and flags.
Then we don’t talk at all;
the eyes understand without words
only the feet kneed the mud harder
to make bricks, to pile them around the tents
to protect ourselves from the winter, the rain and
the cold.
These bricks look nice made of reddish soil
a whole army of bricks, square, drying in the sunshine
quiet, austere, thoughtful.
Our words have to be this way, I’m thinking,
kneed with reddish soil and sea
kneed by the strong, angry feet of the thirsty comrades
left to dry up in the sunshine and the wind
so we can build a lot of songs to protect our hearts
from the rain and the cold.
We don’t talk.
The day before yesterday a comrade bit his tongue not
to betray anything
another one cut off his hand to avoid signing his confession
yesterday they took 14 others to the military court.
At night I think of the words a cut off tongue could say
words a severed hand could write
some words, everyday words like bread on the lap
of a hungry exiled
like the curse the unjustly treated keeps in his mouth
during the night
like the ah of a mother who lights her oil lamp over
the empty beds of her three children,
like the bitten bullet in the palm of a democrat.
The moon falls in through the hole of the tent like
a severed tongue.
We’re still unable to talk.
Δενδρόκηπος
III
α. Ιντερμέδιο
—Μου δίνετε την ταυτότητά σας;
—Να σας ανοίξω την καρδιά μου.
Ο αριθμός μου είναι αριθμός μου.
Δεν είμ’ αυτός, δεν είμ’ εκείνος.
Να σας χαρίσω την ψυχή μου.
Ο καθρέφτης μου είναι ο καθρέφτης μου.
Μη με κοιτάτε μες στα μάτια,
Κοιτάξτε με ως εν εσόπτρω.
Όπου πηγαίνω, σέρνω και τη μοίρα μου
Μαζί με την ταυτότητά μου και τ’ όργανο που παίζω.
Όπου πηγαίνω, δένω το καράβι μου
Μαζί με το σκυλί μου και το μαχαίρι μου.
Όπου πηγαίνω, βάζω τα παπούτσια μου
Μαζί με την καρδιά μου και το καπέλο μου.
Όπου πηγαίνω, παίρνω και τον ίσκιο μου
Μαζί με τη φωτιά μου και τα τσιγάρα μου.
Όπου πηγαίνω, ανοίγω και ψάλλω
Των παθών μου τον ύμνο, την ταφή.
Όπου πηγαίνω, βλέπω τον καιρό,
Κοιτάζομαι ως εν εσόπτρω.
Κάθομαι αντίκρυ μου και τον ακούω που παίζει,
Σαν ένα ορφανό παιδί τη φυσαρμόνικά του.
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Γεμάτη μυστήρια είναι η Ελλάδα μας! Τι να πρωτοπιάσει και τι να αφήσει κανείς… Την πυραμίδα που αδρομερώς διαγράφεται στην κορυφή του Ταΰγετου; Τους Δροσουλίτες της Κρήτης; Τον ποταμό ο οποίος πηγάζει στην Πελοπόννησο και εκβάλλει στη Σικελία; Τα σπήλαια που η λαϊκή μας παράδοση περιβάλλει με θρύλους, πολλοί από τους οποίους πότε-πότε αποδεικνύονται αληθινοί; Τα περίεργα που, όπως λέγεται, συμβαίνουν στο Αγκίστρι του Σαρωνικού; Τα παράδοξα που, σύμφωνα με επανειλημμένες μαρτυρίες, γίνονται στον Υμηττό;
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