REPETITIONS SECOND SERIES
The End of Dodoni I
We had the altars, our churches, the oracles. With
our own eyes we had seen the golden she-dove and
the axe of the lumberjack falling on the ground. Secret
voices — the leaves, the birds and the fountain, told us
what to do, what not to. The enchantresses with their
cauldrons and the coffee cup were a good support. And
over the deep-voiced oak.
We too had somewhere to go, to
ask about the sheep, our children, the pomegranate tree,
the one-eyed cow; about the donkey, the orchard,
the casserole. And always the same answer, (as it changed
each time it was given in the same tone:) certain, firm,
commanding, irreversible. We relaxed somewhat —
others had the responsibility of deciding for success or
failure. We only had the submission and execution, and
our lowered eyes.
Now
everything is reversed, altars, churches, cemeteries.
The bones thrown in the street. They burned down
the holy oak — our confidant. We have no one to ask,
no one to trust. Arkis walks around the agora with the
bloodied axe on his waist; there is no golden fluff from
the sacrificed oracle-giving dove that shivers on the kitchen
skylight or on the dusty oleanders; only the denial water
that drips in the empty stable late at night, and it is quiet
an ambivalent quietness like the first one, like the last.
Manolis Aligizakis 