2nd of November
Today Mitsos received a letter from Skopelos.
Antigone writes “the island autumn
is full of small yellow lilies;
poor Mitsos, you don’t remember those
small lilies;
you never liked the botany class”
Mitsos wiped his glasses and read the letter again.
The discarded Introduction to Botany.
is laid next to him, on the rocks.
He smiled, took off his glasses, didn’t wipe them.
I want to write a poem about Mitsos
not with words
but with small yellow lilies.
Twilight
Rough darkened terrain, footings
of wisdom reflecting bygone
years in immensity
what would you like to smile about?
from myriad pleasant images
migrating like caribou
from north to south and a lone
Inuskshuk standing with a
faint smile balking under difficult
years contending with wholeness
of undressed vistas and endless
hues cascading or whirling upward
with seed husks and precipitate
until nothing remains but
pneuma and a treasured logos
woven through eternity’s shawl
Manolis Aligizakis 