EPIPHANY 1937
The flowering sea and the mountains in the waning
moon
the great rock near the cactus pear trees and the asphodels
the water pitcher that wouldn’t go dry at the end of the day
and the empty bed near the cypresses and your hair
golden, the stars of the Swan and that star, Aldebaran.
I got hold of my life, I got hold of my life traveling
among yellow trees in the slanting rain
in silent slopes loaded with beech-tree leaves
no fire on their peaks; it’s getting dark.
I got hold of my life; a line on your left hand
on your knee a scar, perhaps they still exist
in the sand of last summer, perhaps
they’re still there where the north wind blew and I hear
the unfamiliar voice around the frozen lake.
The faces I see don’t ask questions nor does the woman
stooping as she walks breastfeeding her baby.
I climb the mountains; bruised ravines; the snow
covered
plain, up to the far end the snow-covered plain, they ask nothing
nor does the time enslaved in silent chapels, nor
do the hands outstretched to beg, nor the roads.
I got hold of my life whispering in the boundless silence
I no longer know how to speak nor how to think; whispers
like the cypress’ breath that night
like the human voice of the night sea on pebbles
like the memory of your voice saying ‘happiness’.
I close my eyes searching for the secret encounter of waters
under the ice , the smile of the sea, the closed water wells
groping with my veins those veins
that escape me
there, where the water lilies end and this man
who saunters as though blind on the snow of silence.
I got hold of my life, with him, searching for the water
that touches you
heavy drops on the green leaves, on your face
in the vacant garden, drops on the motionless cistern
discovering a dead swan with its snow-white wings
living trees and your eyes fixated.
This road has no end, doesn’t change, no matter
how hard you try
to recall your childhood years, the ones who left
those
who got lost in their sleep, the pelagic graves
no matter how hard you ask the bodies you loved to stoop
under the hardened branches of the plane trees there
where the naked sun ray stood
and a dog leaped and your heart shuddered
the road has no change; I got hold of my life.
The snow
and the frozen water in the horses’ hoof-marks.
Manolis 