REPETITIONS, SECOND SERIES
Metamorphosis
After their death, their heroes went through many
transformations in the imaginations of the survivors,
natural or strange transformations, sometimes into vine
growers like Protesilaus or hunters like Hippolytus,
other times simple warriors (as they were) with their
beautiful helmet, their sandals, someone (we forget his
name) with a flower in his teeth, and others resembling
animals or serpents, usually snakes. Oh, truly, they help
the Hellenes a lot, before and after their death, even like
that, like snakes or lions.
Now
the heroes fell into decay, they are out of fashion. No one
ever appeals nor they refer to them. We all ask for
anti-heroes.
However, today, we went out, in the sunshine of March
(the soil has also dried up from the rains; the flowering
asphodels, as the ancients called them), to celebrate among
the rocks; today when we, behind the barbwire, vaguely await
that down the shore, the fisherman from Eretria will pass again,
carrying in his nets the gigantic shoulder blade of Pelops.
Manolis Aligizakis 