Birthmarks
Old Galanos looks at the endless
blue sea through the cafe window
he gazes at the open gulf and
recalls his barber life: what he
has learned from the details of
each villager’s hair he has cut for
many years, familiar as he was with
every contour, each strange dip,
mole, birthmark, and of course
Demetre’s crazy head, the man who
took part in every demonstration, back
in the 70ies during the hippy movement,
a flower child of that era with a ponytail
only Galanos was allowed to trim
and he recalls, as his glance melts
in the sunny immenseness, that
he too was meant to be included in
the unwritten history of the village
after all, he too did what he was told:
to be a family man, to obey the law,
to be humble and servile
the simple village barber who
now questions why he didn’t dare
unchain himself from the daily gear
and unshackled and free like a smile
he could get the courage to fly up
on the endless sky like an eagle.
Suddenly a few tears appear in his eyes
and trembling like his heart they roll
down his cheeks as the barber brought
his hand there so the other customers
of the café wouldn’t notice his
sentimentality, his emotion since he too
spent his life just to remain there like
a rock, a gravestone upon which they’d
write that he too wrote his story in the
unwritten logs of the merciless time.
Manolis Aligizakis 