Katerina Anghelaki Rooke – Selected Poems

FOURTH DAY

Pale faces of trees

vaguely visible in light sleep

plain wind without

the message of the acacia.

The seven girls

close their necks to fear.

Afraid of the light, the rain

that their unlearned hands

won’t get wild of the salinity.

They wave goodbye

to their names and hair.

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Yannis Ritsos-Poems, Selected Books

ΦΕΓΓΑΡΙ

Φεγγάρι, φεγγάρι. Τό φεγγάρι

κίτρινο τζάμι στρογγυλό στή μέση ανοιξιάτικης νύχτας. Πίσω του

συγκεντρωμένα πρόσωπα τής νύχτας, σκιές,

σέ βλέπουν—δέν τά βλέπεις. Σέ ορίζουν.

Εδώ όλα τ’ άγνωστα: άγνωστα, κατευνασμένα

στή σιωπηλή παραδοχή πώς δέν θά γνωριστούν

ήσυχα, αμίλητα κι ωχρά σάν γνωρισμένα κι αφημένα.

MOON

Moon, moon. The moon

yellow round glass in the middle of a spring night. Behind it

faces of the night, shadows gather

and see you – you don’t see them. They own you.

Here are all the unknowns: unknown, pacified

in the silent admission that they shall not be known

calm, silent and pale as if known and abandoned.

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