THE DEAD HOUSE
The evening star, have you noticed, sweat evening
star looks like an eraser rubbing on the same spot
as if erasing our mistake, which mistake? And
you hear an imperceptible sound as the eraser goes
back and forth over the mistake which isn’t erased.
Tiny slivers of paper fall on the trees and sparkle.
It’s a pleasant involvement and it doesn’t matter
the mistake isn’t erased; the polite, persistent,
the steady movement of the star is enough like
the first and last concept-rhythm; heavenly energy,
practical too like that of the loom and the verse
the evening star stirs amid the cypresses
golden shuttle between the long mourning threads
one hiding our mistake and the other showing it
not ours, mistake of the world, inherited mistake
what was a mistake? Our birth or death?
Have you noticed?
The autumn evenings are beautiful, friendly
they erase our guilt in a calm, general guilt
and establish a secret friendship among us,
a friendship of rhythm, yes, yes, exactly
a rhythmical friendship, that’s it, it goes
back and forth, birth-death, lust-dream,
act-silence, it’s an exit, I’m saying to you,
to the back side, the darker, straight to heaven.
Manolis Aligizakis 