
Poem by Nanos Valaoritis
BIRTH OF THE WORLD
They say the world was born upside down
but it isn’t true. Whoever was there said the world was born properly with its head down and not with the feet up
the mother of the world was a horrible shrew with hairy head, claws and pointing teeth like nails
but the world was beautiful, nice since the first moment, admired by its uncle the sun and its auntie the moon and by all its cousins, the stars in the sky
and the sea was proud of it and the mountains, then the rivers, the rocks, the trees, the rain, the clouds
everyone and everything was proud of the world even the wild animals and the birds and the serpents, and the fishes at the bottom of the sea
only one didn’t like it: its creator
because he was spiteful and jealous and his name was Abyss. One day he visited his mother and tried to throw his creation in the bottomless crevasse he created
however the angels gave the world wings and it flew away even the demons spoke favorably of it as it was flying
then his father, to avenge it, had three more children with the shrew mother: Time, Decay, and Void.
Since then these three compete in who of them will first destroy the beautiful world; since then we enjoy the world for a moment then we lose it, we, beings of the Moment, who are eaten by Decay, and in short time we return to the Void.