Childhood Memory
During the summer siesta when the adults sleep, a bucket
of water tumbles down the stairway onto the hallway tiles.
At that moment, and under the hallway, at the same spot
where the bucket emptied, a fresh, forgotten for years,
storage room appears. Birds with their violins roost in there,
the linen kerchiefs, starched napkins of old tidiness,
two broken chairs, a basket of grapes, a pair of red
sandals, a high glass, the chalk, the school bell, the young
woodworker who saws the big stairway of the cicada.
Soon a light breeze starts blowing from in there wrinkling
part of the sea and the forehead of poetry with that
neglected, funny, childish frowning.
Manolis Aligizakis 