Expectation
Yes, it was all in vain, we knew it and all the news
we received a description of the abominable horrors in detail:
deeds of friends, acts of foes, merely insignificant and
we paid attention to the song of the chickadee and
to the meadow’s fecund verdure, still able to sing amid
the colorful destruction of our childhood as we gazed at
the decapitated houses as if they were gleaming
stars.
Then, we too, threw away our credit cards and free
from unpaid guilt we walked anew yet as desolate
as the earth we were meant to traverse.
One Drop
He has neither time nor the desire anymore,
he can’t look. He drops and raises an old, holed
bucket into the water well, he draws black
water, he pours it into the black water he already
has. The rope wears out slowly. His only fear,
now, that the rope might break and thus he might
not be able to draw black water. One drop fell
on his shoe, it shines in the sunshine; he can see
that as it grows, it grows and expands to the whole
garden, to the whole world, one drop
on the huge medlar tree leaf and the blinding,
slanting sun ray.
They are the teachers of truth
believers of the wholesome beauty
old men, pure, forever young
suns given to you to enjoy
in the freshness of an April
the Immortal and the Beautiful.
From the shores of Ionia
and from the air of Athens
which creates pneuma as it likes
from the holy grounds of Hellas
Wisdom, Logos, Rhythm
the Immortal and the Beautiful.
And there is Plato and behind him
heroes of Ideas, the philosophers
I’m with them, Grace says,
and there is Homer and behind him
all the hymnists, Olympian creators
the Immortal and the Beautiful.
GODS
And the first man saw
the sun’s ascent for the first time
and he heard the music
responding to it sweetly
thousands of words
thousand compliments
offered to the spring of day
and everything, what a miracle,
the hymns and everything
spread to the four corners of the earth
and the eons gave them flesh
and turned them into
gods of light
monsters of harmony
Initiation
Sacred hue initiate me
into the elegiac rites of my kin
to offer my mind
to the whims of the wind
eulogy of the sea
once revered
forever adorned amid
islands awestruck
by their desire to walk
upon water and slowly reach
the sacred tombs of my ancestors
where all offerings belong
where all devotion adheres
to festivities that annul death
invocations that resurrect and guide
free spirits to their duties
Manolis Aligizakis 