RAIN IS COMING
Sit by the window. The first rain of the dusk
forgives the trees.
One leaf turns yellow in your hands. You don’t know
the day’s heaviness anymore.
Two keys, left on the table, think of all the locked
things
as when the spiders return to their webs
and the ashtray returns to its position in the room
like a star returns to its position in the sky.
Here each word falls noiselessly in the silence
like a burned letter in the hands of the sad man.
We’re better off to gather our days, to fold them
as we fold our summer cloths before we place them
in the chest,
to place our joined hands on our knees
now when the clouds yawn over the roofs
now when sorrow spreads over your face silently
like the silence in the room of the university student
while the tempest intensifies outside.
The leftover cloths of time gather here —
it’s quiet over here, almost warm
you can close your eyes and hear the approaching
night —
that particular walk on its broken heels —
its voice, following behind its worn out veil,
has a certain distant kindness and
there is a silent happiness behind the closed
window shutters, as if you were touching, with
your sorrowful fingers, that same tortured hand
of our old friend.
Perhaps a few stars were left outside in the autumn
like the moonshine glasses left in the living room
with a few drops of cognac, after the visitors left along
with Nausicaa with a small twig lighting her shoulder
and mother, inside the evening mirror, was left all alone
trying to unhang her smile with her tired hand
in the same way she always takes the pins off her hair
every evening.
Then suddenly the wind stopped
and the dog’s yelp was heard in the yard of the hanged
man, then the sound of the clock was heard
in the room like rain falling drop by drop in the
darkened sea.
Put another blanket on the bed
it’s cold in the morning hours. Then, what were
we saying? Ah, yes, I almost forgot that letter.
The postman brought it in the afternoon. Perhaps it’s
from your sister.
Your knees look so sad under the table like
the coiled ropes of a ship in the harbour during
the winter
like the lamps that were left lighted at dawn
in a room next to the shore with the empty canary cage
and the burnt out cigarette in the metal sink.
But I don’t want, I can’t stay inside here with
this picture that felt sleepy in its smile,
the light shine on grandfather’s forgotten glasses
the coffee cup with the cigarette butts, the old
newspaper.
How can you invert the idol of the evening in the mirror?
The glasses again, the cigarette butts — all the same;
nothing changes inside this mirror.
And a falling star lighted the mouth of the captain,
locked on his pipe — he doesn’t talk;
a lonely horse vanishes in the forest;
an eye takes aim through the hole of the night.
No one talks. The moored ship with the turned off lights;
slowly, slowly; give me your hand, here is mine; don’t
say anything; but wake up early tomorrow morning; dawn
can’t wait — the light will shine on the trees tomorrow;
the windows facing the shore will say good morning
to the sun tomorrow;
the sun never forgives such delays.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 