The Sentence to Oblivion
Who would estimate for us the sentence to oblivion?
- GEORGE SEFERIS
Stop, passer-by, before the still lake; the curly sea and the tormented ships
the roads that surrounded mountains and birthed stars
everything ends on this immense surface.
Now you may watch the swans calmly
look at them, they are white like a night’s sleep
without touching anywhere, they slide on a thin blade
that raises them slightly over the water.
They are like you, stranger, the still wings and you understand them
while the stone eyes of lions look at you
and the tree’s leaf remains uninscribed in the sky
and the slate pencil pierced the prison wall.
And yet the birds that slaughtered the village girls weren’t other than them
the blood turned the milk red on the street’s flagstones
and their horses noiselessly drew in the troughs
illegible shapes like molten lead.
And the night slowly tightened their leaning necks
that didn’t sing as there was no way to die but beat decapitating bones of people blindly.
And their wings cooled the horror.
And whatever happened had the serenity of what you see before you
they had the same serenity because there wasn’t any soul left in us to contemplate
other than the craving to incise some marks on the stones
that have now touched the bottom below memory.
We are with them as well, far away, very far away, stop passer-by
before the still lake with the unblemished swans
that travel like white rags in your mind
and they wake you up to things you lived but don’t remember.
You don’t even remember reading our writings on the stones
yet you remain ecstatic along with your sheep
that make your body big with their wool
now that you feel in your veins the sound of sacrifice.
Manolis Aligizakis 