And Once More About Love
Of the sun’s blinking
this summer night
when chilling shadows entwine together
over Hargita the sky spreads out
in quietness to make love in
a mellow myth
the stars, insomniacs thatblink
like tiny animals
my fingers gallop
on your pulsing neck
I avoid your fragile bones
and linger at the camp
of your innocence
in your closed eyelids
dreams squeeze
kiss my sad face
to heal
this body that
clings to yours
this hand that
draws you
this is not me –
keep on dreaming about me!
Egon Schiele, 1890 – 1918
LIKE A BOAT ON A LAKE . . .
THE AFTERNOON slowly passed by
like a boat on a lake of still waters,
on your chest the violets trembled
caressed by a burning breath.
There I murmured to you, near the fountain,
in the park that keeps secret yearnings,
“I am like the miner who respectfully longs
for the veins of your tender affection . . .”
And the peace of the branches was disrupted,
and when you so softly said, “I adore you!”
a fluttering of wings was heard over the gold
of your timid and fervent head,
that anchored that evening, and the night
suddenly stretched out its unfurled wing.
Xavier Villaurrutia, Mexico, 1903 ─ 1050
ΒΑΡΚΑ ΣΤΗ ΛΙΜΝΗ
Ήρεμα πέρασε τ’ απόγευμα
σαν βάρκα σε λίμνης τ’ ακίνητα νερά
βιολέτες έκαιγαν στο στήθος σου
χαϊδεμένο απ’ την καυτή ανάσα
Τότε σου ψιθύρισα, δίπλα στο συντριβάνι
στο πάρκο που φυλάσει τις μυστικές επιθυμίες,
είμαι σαν μιναδόρος που πεθυμά
τη φλέβα της τρυφερής σου αγάπης
Κι η ηρεμία των κλαδιών ταράχτηκε
κι όταν μουρμούρισες το «σε λατρεύω»
πέταγμα φτερών ακούστηκε πάνω απ’τη χρυσή,
δειλή και κι ολόφλογη σου κεφαλή
που έδεσε το δείλι, κι η νύχτα ξαφνικά
ξεδίπλωσε την διπλωμένη της φτερούγα
Μετάφραση Μανώλη Αλυγιζάκη//Translated by Manolis Aligizakis Xavier Villaurrutia, Mexico, 1903 ─ 1950
The Mood of a Day
We plainly saw that not a soul lived in that fated vessel!
•
EDGAR ALLAN POE
The mood of a day we lived ten years ago in a foreign
land
the ether of an ancient moment that grew wings and flew
away like the Lord’s angel
the voice of a woman forgotten with so much prudence
and so much pain
an inconsolable end, a September setting made
of marble.
New houses dusty clinics eruptive windows
coffin maker’s shops…
Has anyone thought of what the sensitive drug store owner endures
on duty all night long?
The room is in a mesh: drawers windows doors with
gaping mouths like wild animals
a pissed off man reads the cards, searches, reads the stars,
seeks.
He worries: if they knock at the door who will open it?
If he opens a book whom is he to look at? If he opens
his soul who will look? Chain
Where is love that with a single stroke cuts time in two
and dumbs it?
Only words and gestures. An unvarying monologue
before a mirror under a wrinkle
The boredom spreads like an ink mark on a handkerchief
They all died in the ship, but the ship follows the route
it started from the harbor.
How the captain’s nails grew…and the boatswain who had
three girlfriends in every port unshaven.
The sea swells slowly, the riggings fill with pride and
the day becomes mild.
Three dolphins appearing black, shine, the mermaid smiles
and a forgotten seaman riding the yardarm waves.
Excerpt
Chapter Six
With Christmas only three weeks away, every student nurse at the
Holy Cross waited impatiently to find out what hours she would be
working over the holidays. A few would have enough days off to go
home, even if they lived some distance away. Others would be on
duty throughout the season.
Tyne hoped for three days off to make it worthwhile to take the bus
home to Emblem. Morley had offered to come to Calgary to get her,
but she did not think he should leave his farm and the livestock. His
father had not been well, and Morley had more than enough to do
with his own farm and his daily trips to look after his parents’ place.
Tyne had not been home for Christmas since beginning her nurses’
training. In many ways she did not mind. She counted it a blessing
to be able to make the day as pleasant as possible for her patients
although at times she found it heartrending, especially on the children’s
ward. But the Christmas she had spent on Maternity was one
she would never forget. The joy of the new mothers made her own
heart joyful, and in each little occupant of the nursery she saw the
baby Jesus.
Even if she could not get home to Emblem, Tyne would have a
Christmas dinner. Moe’s parents were coming from Lethbridge to
spend the holidays with Moe’s older, married sister. The sister had
promised to plan her dinner around whatever hours the two nurses
were off duty, providing they worked the same shift.
Tyne was surprised not to have received an invitation from the
Shaughnessys as she had for the previous two years. They had not
invited her or Moe to their home since Carol Ann left the hospital
Excerpt
Chapter IV
Eteo’s eyes were fixed on two small perch feeding on the barnacles
around a dock pile. The water was so clear he could see them biting
the barnacles and twisting their bodies to pull off the prey. Nature
and its wonders, Eteo thought, smiling in appreciation. Then he felt
the vibration of the phone in his pocket.
“Hello, Eteo.” Susan’s voice made him feel warm and eager.
“How’s my sweet Susan?”
“I’m good, and you?”
“Excellent. See you later tonight?”
“Yes, come by the house around seven.”
“Sending you a sweet kiss until later”
“Back at you the same way.” Susan’s voice sounded as melodic as
ever, and Eteo wished he was with her at this moment to give her that
kiss in real.
After taking care of dinner for the boys, Eteo dressed carefully
and drove to the east side of Burnaby where Susan lived. She opened
the door and hugged him when he stepped inside. Their lips locked
in a long kiss. He admired her smiling face and exquisite makeup.
Disturbance
Soldiers with long, dirty legs, mixed with the blankets,
their breaths full of stagnant air when the cleft moon
appears, and gunshots are heard from down towards
the slaughterhouses, “Thanassis, Thanassis” women
call from behind the window shutters. No one turns
to look at lost names, lost consciousness; dogs roll
pitchers down the asphalt; steel drums roll down from
the hillsides; “Thanassis, Thanassis” while a bunch of
leaflets pop out of the blind man’s hat as he tries to protect
the violin in his coat.
III
I saunter around this city with such curiosity. Serenity
reigned in my heart indeed I was singing between
my teeth, a song from my childhood.
The men I met were very tall and wore long foustanellas* down to the ground. Their walk was slow, graceful, I’d say, as it is usually in the East. Some others wore caps on their grey heads and others large, tragic women’s hats with feathers.
However, suddenly, an inexplicable sadness covered my heart. These people didn’t have any eyes. I paid attention to them: their glances had already worried me. The fear stopped me for a while and rendered me motionless
and silent. When I managed to stir somewhat and run
after them I finally realized that they’d vanish once
they reached the corner like a dream. They’d vanish to
reappear on the other corner from where they came to
continue their despicable saunter, unaffectedly.
There was no doubt anymore. A horrible scam was
put together for me. I understood I was the victim of
a terrible trap. Then, as I realized the seriousness of
my mistake, I sat down and cried bitterly.
Excerpt
brush not ten feet beside him. In an instant, he realized that,
with the wind blowing away from them, the deer didn’t hear or
smell the horse and rider headed their direction. No sooner had
the deer fled in a scurry of dirt and brush than the buckskin
jumped, nearly out of his skin. One moment Joel was sitting solidly
on the back of the buckskin and the next they were both ten
feet to the right, with Joel experiencing a launch akin to take-off
on a NASA space mission.
With a power that he could hardly imagine possible, the young
horse had rocketed forward, leaving Joel behind. In actual fact, it
would have been better if he did get left behind, but Joel’s left boot
stuck in the stirrup. And with the force of the jump, his boot had
slipped through the stirrup. Now he was being dragged at breakneck
speed across the rock-strewn hillside. His foot was supposed
to slip out of the boot and free him from danger but what
was supposed to happen just didn’t.
Spooked by the deer, the buckskin gelding blasted up and out
of the coulee, racing to the barn. Joel knew that this couldn’t last
for long. There were just too many boulders between there and
the barn, and the odds that he would hit at least one were pretty
good unless he did something in a hurry as he bounced along on
his back, dragged by the horse and only inches from the pounding
hooves. In a flash, Joel imagined his exposed cranium hitting a
granite boulder at twenty-five miles per hour. With one cry he
asked, pleaded, begged, and commanded the horse to stop with a
desperate “Whoa!”
As a boy, his dad had told Joel that anyone could stop a horse,
sooner or later, by pulling back on the reins, but his dad showed
him an unusual technique—dropping the reins to the horse’s
neck and asking it to whoa. Right here, right now, he was glad
that he had worked so hard with the gelding on exactly this
maneuver. But practicing in the round pen and the arena was one
thing; Joel was about to discover how effective his training would
be in the wide-open space of the pasture.
Excerpt
The day of our departure came too soon. Entire families gathered
at the plaza to bid farewell to their most respectable sons. After a
year of preparation, don Diego de Losada had managed to convince
one hundred and fifty men to take their chances with him. No small
achievement, considering their prospects for survival.
Our expedition was bound for the province of Caracas—where
the town of San Francisco had briefly existed—and we were
destined to rebuild it in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ for our
most gracious king, His Sanctified Catholic Majesty, Don Felipe II.
Less than five men out of each of the previous two expeditions into
the area had been left alive to tell the tale.
I had heard stories about battles, about how I would be lucky to
be killed at once. Cannibals liked to tie a Christian to a tree while
they danced in circles, possessed by the devil, chopping pieces out of
him every time they came about, cooking his parts under his nose or
even eating them raw, shooting arrows at him until his blood had
drained, blood they would collect in little bowls and drink as they
danced, smearing it on their bodies, spitting it on the ground.
One chief in particular, Guacaipuro, who commanded the Indian
forces of the valley of Caracas, put the fear of God into Spanish and
tame Indians alike, for it was said he had no mercy for either. All of
the other chiefs pledged their allegiance to him. On the land of one of
these, the settlement of San Francisco had been established almost a
decade ago, but Guacaipuro had burned it to ashes. It was to that
place we were heading.
Dressed in their feathered morions, coats of mail and cloaks,
twenty men on horseback under don Francisco Ponce’s command
melted stoically like butter in the sun, to be accompanied by fifty
harquebusiers with their pouches heavy with stone munitions,
eighty men on foot, eight hundred servants, two hundred beasts of
burden, several thousand pigs, four thousand sheep—all intended
to secure the beginnings of a new city.
Manolis Aligizakis 