Orestes
Even the flower vases of the house present a gesture of
lenience to her wailing, the compassion of a few roses
gracefully placed, by the hands of mother, there,
in the engraved console in front of the big, family
mirror with its double, watery gleam from reflection
to reflection — I recall it since my childhood — this
still remains shadow-less, watery gleam, tender, neutral,
an abstraction, the timeless, sinless, something soft and
exquisite like the first hair on the neck of girls or the lips
of the ephebes, like the fragrance of a freshly bathed
body in the cool bed-sheets, warmed by the breath of
a starry summer night.
She doesn’t understand anything: the echoes which
scoff her out of tune voice. I’m afraid; I can’t respond
to her call — so great and funny at the same time —
to her emphatic words, old, as if exhumed from
chests of the old good seasons (as the old people say),
like the big, rough-dry flags with mothballs, denial, and
silence in their seams — so old that they don’t suspect
their old age and insist to flutter with ancient gestures
over the unsuspecting, busy and disgusted people passing
in modest, asphalt streets, despite their width and length,
with the decorated display windows, full of ties, crystals,
bathing suits, purses, brushes, which correspond better
to the needs of our times, therefore and to the endless
need of life that commands us.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 