The Shape of Fate
Fairy tales painted in our hearts
like a silver schooner offered before the temple
of an empty church, July on the island.
- G.S.
The shape of fate over the birth of a child,
circles of stars and the wind on a dark night of February,
old women with practical medicines climbing creaking stairs
and the dry branches of the grapevine naked in the courtyard.
The shape of a black-kerchiefed fate over a baby’s crib
inexplicable smile and lowered eyes and breast white like milk
and the door that opened and the sea ravaged skipper
throwing his wet hat on top of a black chest.
These faces and these events followed you
as you unraveled the yarn for your nets on the shore
and again when you watched the depth of the waves; as you sailed in double fair wind
on all seas, in all coves they were with you, and they were the hard life and they were the joy.
Now I don’t know how to read further
because they tied you in chains, cause they pierced you with the spear,
cause one night in the forest they separated you from the woman
who looked with her eyes fixated and didn’t know how to speak,
cause they deprived you of light, the pelagos, the bread.
How did we fall, comrade, in the trap of fear?
It wasn’t in your fate, nor in mine these writings
we never bought or sold such things
who is he who orders and kills behind our backs?
Let it be, don’t ask; three red horses on the threshing floor
circle around human bones and have their eyes covered,
let it be, don’t ask, wait; the blood, the blood
will rise one morning like St George the horse rider
to nail the dragon to the soil with his spear
Manolis Aligizakis 