For Kariotakis
The young men who arrived to the deserted island
one night counted themselves and found you missing.
They looked each other in the eyes and no wonder
they shook their heads in sadness.
Many nights they recalled that from your loneliness
a sign of fire you would send and they knew
the sad welcome of the abyss that lighted the roads
and for this they stayed in their familiar places.
Left in their grief, as if fatefully and sorrowfully
hanging from the “rock” of danger.
And when you said goodbye, you, the forever desperate,
they sang a few verses of a traditional dirge.
The young men arrive to the island every year
and they search for the elegy of life in your vacant spot.
In their eyes two tears they maintain for you
and for the new Epoch you have established.
Manolis Aligizakis 