SHAPE OF ABSENCE XXI
Since the day of your passing everyone migrated. We, who
stayed behind, are strangers to the day and to the night. The dark
steps of fear creak deep in the mirrors with the concern that
perhaps we might cut ourselves while shaving, that perhaps
we won’t recognize our strange faces, which you recognized
as yours and ours too.
Only the road where we took you for a walk during the hot
summer afternoons
up to the small station, along the flower shop and the bakery,
that road
retains the marks of the wheels of your carriage
as if in a noisy tunnel of our old time, untouched
by the low tone chirps of the birds, the fragrance
of the fruit,
the curses one hears in the marketplace. Our space,
untouched, unspoiled, holy, beyond time, a tunnel
that secretly takes you from under the thoughtful
good evening of the neighbours.
Manolis Aligizakis 