LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER
A clay pitcher is moulded, remolded like flowing light,
experimenting with itself, still hasn’t decided to exist
and you hear the semicircle dance of its handle that curls
more and more, then less and less, touching the body of
the pitcher momentarily, again to distance itself quite
independently, looking elsewhere, meaning something
else, floating in the intoxication of its lissomness, like
a winged serpent, like an autonomous flower made of
rosy silver.
And they all wait, in their beautiful palindrome,
for you to undertake their responsibility, to create them,
to give them meaning, shape, and to name them and
place them in their positions. Yet, absorbed as you’re
in the vague and useless, you delay; then, at the time of
the last forgetfulness, the time you have to light the lamp,
the horrible ringing echoes in your sleep like a punctual
alarm clock that stops sleep, like an erotic spasm that
stops lust. You stand up and the rays of the lamp you’re
about to light have already wrapped around your neck,
like ropes your hands lifting you up, and outside.
And, in the light you put on to guide the ships,
you see the ships which look at your lamp
you see your golden, miraculous and useful hands.
Manolis Aligizakis 