Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV

ORESTES (Excerpt)

I like this damp quietness. Somewhere close by, in a humble

house, a young woman is combing her long hair, and next

to her, her spread undies are breathing in the moonlight; all

of them flowing, slippery, happy. In the baths, water is poured

out of big urns onto the necks and breasts of young girls, the

small aromatic bars of soap slide onto the tiles; bubbles split

the sound of water and laughter; a woman slipped and fell;

everything slips because of the soap — you can’t hold

the bubbles nor can you get a hold of yourself — this slippage

is the reoccurring rhythm of life — women laugh and blow

the white, weightless, tiny towers of soap-bubbles from

the little forest of their mound. Isn’t this happiness?

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