Poem by George Seferis
STROPHE
Moment, sent by a hand
that I had so much loved
you reached me almost at dusk
like a black dove.
The road shone before me
soft breath of sleep
at the end of a secret feast
moment, grain of sand,
that you alone kept
the tragic clepsydra whole
silent, as though it had seen Hydra
in the heavenly orchard.
Justification
I strode over
fallen branches
victims of last night’s
merciless wind
I listened to music in tune
with endless perfection
when I heard
the chirp of the bird
raised my head
saw it, a chickadee
shivering, singing, laughing
on the tree limb
justification
that I was alive
this morning
Lighthouse Keeper
You see, it isn’t inactivity or forgetfulness, on
the contrary; you could call it a responsible isolation,
chosen by you so that the whole of you might exist
in the void. I don’t know. No, don’t stay, the lighthouse
light is tiring, distant, useless.
Don’t stay.
Sometimes I too shift, in order to get the sense that
I exist, from my motionless position to the multi-
motional position of a ship, of a voyager, of a castaway,
to notice, in the night, the importance of my position seen
from the opposite side when our sets, made of carton paper,
are destroyed by the last thunderbolt and the stage is left
with only the dead electricians under the broken staircase
and cut ropes, when the ships sink and angry people gaze at
the empty ocean, like a gigantic zero, in the wrath
of the elements, trying to hang onto a plank, because,
of course, they can’t get a hold of the lighthouse rays.
COME, OH KING OF THE LACEDAEMONIANS
Kratisikleia didn’t condescend
to let the people see her crying and grieving;
she walked gracefully and silently.
Her collected face didn’t show
any of her sorrow and extreme torment.
But nonetheless for a moment she couldn’t hold it;
and before she boarded the wretched ship for Alexandria,
she took her son to the temple of Poseidon,
and when they were alone she embraced him
and she kissed him, he was “in great pain”, says
Plutarch and “deeply troubled”.
But her strong character struggled;
and after recovering, the admirable woman
said to Kleomenis “Come, oh king
of the Lacedaemonians, when we go out
let no one see us crying
or acting in a manner unworthy of Sparta.
Let this alone remain between us;
as for our fate, let it be as the gods wish it.”
And she boarded the ship going toward what the gods wished.
Devout Comparison
Next to each other the cafe the pharmacy the patisserie
and closer by the small flower shop People don’t stop
The women look at themselves in the windows before dusk Behind
the half-built stone fence in the stadium with the mallows
everyone throws their own – paper trays
little medication bottles broken cups glasses
rotten flowers
The old women and the dogs gather there
searching in the pile carefully absentmindedly – they don’t look
at the golden sundown they search like poets for their poem
the most bitter old women the abandoned so happy
with a dry orange peel with a piece of a mirror
with a blue pharmacy tube that has on top of it
the white trace of the homeless slug
and in its empty space the sound of the Larissa train
LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
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The Great Sin
I could have definitely accomplished great things in my life
but I was born so busy, I mean to say (what can I say and who
would understand?) Those days I lived in a shabby hotel near
the train station; trains departed fast like the seasons; during
the night we could hear a gunshot as if from the past and
nostalgia killed me while the pale maid, wrapped in the dark
secret of her wasted life, made the bed and I remembered mother
who always told me there was only one great sin, “my son”
she’d say and I understood because there are just a few words
in the world like the most beautiful stories about us that one may
narrate when no one is around anymore to listen to them.
PUBLIC GARDEN
Ah, yes, they all put their secret letters into it: ecstatic
women whose dresses balloon while there is not wind
at all,
sad ephebes who still don’t know of their beauty,
especially those silent men; and if by chance a child
comes who can’t reach to put the letter in the mailbox,
it lowers its shoulders a little or it kneels —
and you’d think that, one day, it’ll deliver all these letters
into the hand of God.
I never learned the reason nor its importance
perhaps it happened accidentally. I don’t know. I’m waiting
for the lights to be turned on in the park, as if someone has
promised it to me.
I don’t ask further. People here, under the big trees, seem
small and insignificant and their passions
even more insignificant, however you can’t measure them
with the trees, they don’t know, they’re measured with
the bread, their rent, and truly, with the small hole
a bullet makes, from where all their life can be emptied —
of course, it can. Time has passed.
Manolis Aligizakis 