…and the green pastures were faraway
along with the flowering villages
and when each quietened down
in the embrace of the other,
from the groan of the camel
to the prayer of the muezzin,
when everything was left behind,
the thin skinned ascetic and
the slow passing of the caravan
that left behind a sweet
lengthened harmony and
the echo of colours and shadows
of female travellers with
undulating breasts, half covered
women with black eyes and
servants who followed helped by
their canes, tireless women
and the patriarch life that each
evening turned more holy and
blissful of which voyagers
sang with their tired voices.
And when he was left without
the company of passing wild
horses chased by the simoon
in the sunlit paths, the
Tearless felt a strange pain in
his viscera, the Ghost of thirst
that tyrannized him.
Manolis Aligizakis 