Katerina – Anghelaki Rooke

The Vitos Calendar
To the memory of Nikos Kazantzakis
FIRST DAY
my body became the beginning of a voyage.
Lights on the shore, a funeral procession
for the verdure of summer
the calls of mothers
took an autumnal echo
in the forgiveness of twilight.
I walk as the first rain
comes from the sea
for me the escape — quench of
an ancient thirst — was called death.
may the soft winds blow
and slowly mark the orchards of the horizon
that we, the final comrades, shall cultivate.
silent caiques await the morning twilight
in the nightly quietness of the harbor.
The taste of the grape and of the fig
belong to memory now.
my body became the beginning of a voyage.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WH7SMZ6

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV

The Lost Hyperborean Land
We found out finally that there isn’t any Hyperborean, other
than the Ripean Mountains, as far as its glaucus borders is
concerned, which, depending on the latest discoveries
of geographers, constantly move farther away.
Today, we were assured:
simple imagination the land from which the swans and quails
come to us, where the modest Korae Laodice and Hyperoche
prepared for the Gods the first fruits of the season wrapping
them carefully with grain chaff and thin paper.
And we now
ask ourselves where does Apollo, playing his golden lyre,
migrate each winter on the chariot pulled by gleaming swans
and griffins as we, month after month from early March,
waited for his return, in the cold, composing his joyous
paeans?
Or perhaps the lyre as well as Apollo don’t exist anymore?
Yet we still continue the half composed paean
leaving the space for the name empty, perhaps
something new might be added at the last moment
always in fear that the number of its syllables,
longer or shorter, might ruin our musical meter.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9X3VPN4

Chthonian Bodies

Altruistic
Suppliants to the shrine of love
we fly benedictory glances
peculiar references
to hagiology
respected by civilizers
revered by autochthons
Inukshuks of the plains
repetitive guideposts
for unfocused hunters
elliptical emotions
beasts slaughtered
by the hand of the Great Will
I am that I am
your Spirit and
you are Mine
oh, man, little
remnant of my Immortality

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763424