1







The angel —



three years we waited for him, attention riveted,



closely scanning



the pines the shore the stars.



One with the blade of the plough or the ship’s keel



we were searching to find once more the first seed



so that the age-old drama could begin again.







We returned to our homes broken,



limbs incapable, mouths cracked



by the tastes of rust and brine.



when we woke we traveled towards the north, strangers



plunged into mist by the immaculate wings of swans that wounded us.



On winter nights the strong wind from the east maddened us,



in the summers we were lost in the agony of days that couldn’t die.







We brought back



these carved reliefs of a humble art.















2







Still one more well inside a cave.



It used to be easy for us to draw up idols and ornaments



to please those friends who still remained loyal to us.







The ropes have broken; only the grooves on the well’s lip



remind us of our past happiness:



the fingers on the rim, as the poet put it.



The fingers feel the coolness of the stone a little,



Then the body’s fever prevails over it



and the cave stakes its soul and loses it



every moment, full of silence, without a drop of water.















3







Remember the baths where you were murdered







I woke with this marble head in my hands;



it exhausts my elbow and I don’t know where to put it down.



It was falling into the dream as I was coming out of the dream



so our life became one and it will be very difficult for it to separate again.







I look at the eyes: neither open nor closed



I speak to the mouth which keeps trying to speak



I hold the cheeks which have broken through the skin.



That’s all I’m able to do.







My hands disappear and come towards me



mutilated.















4







Argonauts







And a soul



if it is to know itself



must look



into its own soul:



the stranger and enemy, we’ve seen him in the mirror.







They were good, the companions, they didn’t complain



about the work or the thirst or the frost,



they had the bearing of trees and waves



that accept the wind and the rain



accept the night and the sun



without changing in the midst of change.



They were fine, whole days



they sweated at the oars with lowered eyes



breathing in rhythm



and their blood reddened a submissive skin.



Sometimes they sang, with lowered eyes



as we were passing the deserted island with the Barbary figs



to the west, beyond the cape of the dogs



that bark.



If it is to know itself, they said



it must look into its own soul, they said



and the oar’s struck the sea’s gold



in the sunset.



We went past many capes many islands the sea



leading to another sea, gulls and seals.



Sometimes disconsolate women wept



lamenting their lost children



and others frantic sought Alexander the Great



and glories buried in the depths of Asia.







We moored on shores full of night-scenes,



the birds singing, with waters that left on the hands



the memory of a great happiness.



But the voyages did not end.



Their souls became one with the oars and the oarlocks



with the solemn face of the prow



with the rudder’s wake



with the water that shattered their image.



The companions died one by one,



with lowered eyes. Their oars



mark the place where they sleep on the shore.







No one remembers them. Justice















5







We didn’t know them



deep down it was hope that said



we’d known them since early childhood.



We saw them perhaps twice and then they took to the ships:



cargoes of coal, cargoes of grain, and our friends



lost beyond the ocean forever.



Dawn finds us beside the tired lamp



drawing on paper, awkwardly, painfully,



ships mermaids or sea shells;



at dusk we go down to the river



because it shows us the way to the sea;



and we spend the nights in cellars that smell of tar.







Our friends have left us



perhaps we never saw them, perhaps



we met them when sleep



still brought us close to the breathing wave



perhaps we search for them because we search for the other life,



beyond the statues.















6







M.R.







The garden with its fountains in the rain



you will see only from behind the clouded glass



of the low window. Your room



will be lit only by the flames from the fireplace



and sometimes the distant lightning will reveal



the wrinkles on your forehead, my old Friend.







The garden with the fountains that in your hands



was a rhythm of the other life, beyond the broken



statues and the tragic columns



and a dance among the oleanders



near the new quarries —



misty glass will have cut it off from your life.



You won’t breathe; earth and the sap of the trees



will spring from your memory to strike



this window struck by rain



from the outside world.















7







South wind







Westward the sea merges with a mountain range.



From our left the south wind blows and drives us mad,



the kind of wind that strips bones of their flesh.



Our house among pines and carobs.



Large windows. Large tables



for writing you the letters we’ve been writing



so many months now, dropping them



into the space between us in order to fill it up.







Star of dawn, when you lowered your eyes



our hours were sweeter than oil



on a wound, more joyful than cold water



to the palate, more peaceful than a swan’s wings.



You held our life in the palm of your hand.



After the bitter bread of exile,



at night if we remain in front of the white wall



your voice approaches us like the hope of fire;



and again this wind hones



a razor against our nerves.







Each of us writes you the same thing



and each falls silent in the other’s presence,



watching, each of us, the same world separately



the light and darkness on the mountain range



and you.



Who will lift this sorrow from our hearts?



Yesterday evening a heavy rain and again today



the covered sky burdens us. Our thoughts –



like the pine needles of yesterday’s downpour



bunched up and useless in front of our doorway —



would build a collapsing tower.







Among these decimated villages



on this promontory, open to the south wind



with the mountain range in front of us hiding you,



who will appraise for us the sentence to oblivion?



Who will accept our offering, at this close of autumn?















8







What are they after, our souls, travelling



on the decks of decayed ships



crowded in with sallow women and crying babies



unable to forget themselves either with the flying fish



or with the stars that the masts point our at their tips;



grated by gramophone records



committed to non-existent pilgrimages unwillingly



murmuring broken thoughts from foreign languages.







What are they after, our souls, travelling



on rotten brine-soaked timbers



from harbour to harbour?







Shifting broken stones, breathing in



the pine’s coolness with greater difficulty each day,



swimming in the waters of this sea



and of that sea,



without the sense of touch



without men



in a country that is no longer ours



nor yours.







We knew that the islands were beautiful



somewhere round about here where we grope,



slightly lower down or slightly higher up,



a tiny space.















9







The harbour is old, I can’t wait any longer



for the friend who left the island with the pine trees



for the friend who left the island with the plane trees



for the friend who left for the open sea.



I stroke the rusted cannons, I stroke the oars



so that my body may revive and decide.



The sails give off only the smell



of salt from the other storm.







If I chose to remain alone, what I longed for



was solitude, not this kind of waiting,



my soul shattered on the horizon,



these lines, these colours, this silence.







The night’s stars take me back to Odysseus,



to his anticipation of the dead among the asphodels.



When we moored here we hoped to find among the asphodels



the gorge that knew the wounded Adonis.















10







Our country is closed in, all mountains



that day and night have the low sky as their roof.



We have no rivers, we have no wells, we have no springs,



only a few cisterns — and these empty — that echo, and that we worship.



A stagnant hollow sound, the same as our loneliness



the same as our love, the same as our bodies.



We find it strange that once we were able to build



our houses, huts and sheep-folds.



And our marriages, the cool coronals and the fingers,



become enigmas inexplicable to our soul.



How were our children born, how did they grow strong?







Our country is closed in. The two black Symplegades



close it in. When we go down



to the harbours on Sunday to breathe freely



we see, lit in the sunset,



the broken planks from voyages that never ended,



bodies that no longer know how to love.















11







Sometimes your blood froze like the moon



in the limitless night your blood



spread its white wings over



the black rocks, the shapes of trees and houses,



with a little light from our childhood years.















12







Bottle in the sea







Three rocks, a few burnt pines, a lone chapel



and farther above



the same landscape repeated starts again:



three rocks in the shape of a gateway, rusted,



a few burnt pines, black and yellow,



and a square hut buried in whitewash;



and still farther above, many times over,



the same landscape recurs level after level



to the horizon, to the twilit sky.







Here we moored the ship to splice the broken oars,



to drink water and to sleep.



The sea that embittered us is deep and unexplored



and unfolds a boundless calm.



Here among the pebbles we found a coin



and threw dice for it.



The youngest won it and disappeared.







We put to sea again with our broken oars.















13







Hydra







Dolphins banners and the sound of cannons.



The sea once so bitter to your soul



bore the many-coloured and glittering ships



it swayed, rolled and tossed them, all blue with white wings,



once so bitter to your soul



now full of colours in the sun.







White sails and sunlight and wet oars



struck with a rhythm of drums on stilled waves.







Your eyes, watching, would be beautiful,



your arms, reaching out, would glow,



your lips would come alive, as they used to,



at such a miracle:



that’s what you were looking for



what were you looking for in front of ashes



or in the rain in the fog in the wind



even when the lights were growing dim



and the city was sinking and on the stone pavement



the Nazarene showed you his heart,



what were you looking for? why don’t you come? what were you looking for?















14







Three red pigeons in the light



inscribing our fate in the light



with colours and gestures of people



we once loved.















15







Quid πλατανων opacissimus







Sleep wrapped you in green leaves like a tree



you breathed like a tree in the quiet light



in the limpid spring I looked at your face:



eyelids closed, eyelashes brushing the water.



In the soft grass my fingers found your fingers



I held your pulse a moment



and felt elsewhere your heart’s pain.







Under the plane tree, near the water, among laurel



sleep moved you and scattered you



around me, near me, without my being able to touch the whole of you —



one as you were with your silence;



seeing your shadow grow and diminish,



lose itself in the other shadows, in the other



world that let you go yet held you back.







The life that they gave us to live, we lived.



Pity those who wait with such patience



lost in the black laurel under the heavy plane trees



and those, alone, who speak to cisterns and wells



and drown in the voice’s circles.



Pity the companion who shared our privation and our sweat



and plunged into the sun like a crow beyond the ruins,



without hope of enjoying our reward.







Give us, outside sleep, serenity.















16







The name is Orestes







On the track, once more on the track, on the track,



how many times around, how many blood-stained laps, how many black



rows; the people who watch me,



who watched me when, in the chariot,



I raised my hand glorious, and they roared triumphantly.







The froth of the horses strikes me, when will the horses tire?



The axle creaks, the axle burns, when will the axle burst into flame?



When will the reins break, when will the hooves



tread flush on the ground



on the soft grass, among the poppies



where, in the spring, you picked a daisy.



They were lovely, your eyes, but you didn’t know where to look



nor did I know where to look, I, without a country,



I who go on struggling here, how many times around?



and I feel my knees give way over the axle



over the wheels, over the wild track



knees buckle easily when the gods so will it,



no one can escape, what use is strength, you can’t



escape the sea that cradled you and that you search for



at this time of trial, with the horses panting,



with the reeds that used to sing in autumn to the Lydian mode



the sea you cannot find no matter how you run



no matter how you circle past the black, bored Eumenides,



unforgiven.















17







Astyanax







Now that you are leaving, take the boy with you as well,



the boy who saw the light under the plane tree,



one day when trumpets resounded and weapons shone



and the sweating horses



bent to the trough to touch with wet nostrils



the green surface of the water.







The olive trees with the wrinkles of our fathers



the rocks with the wisdom of our fathers



and our brother’s blood alive on the earth



were a vital joy, a rich pattern



for the souls who knew their prayer.







Now that you are leaving, now that the day of payment



dawns, now that no one knows



whom he will kill and how he will die,



take with you the boy who saw the light



under the leaves of that plane tree



and teach him to study the trees.















18







I regret having let a broad river slip through my fingers



without drinking a single drop.



Now I’m sinking into the stone.



A small pine tree in the red soil



is all the company I have.



Whatever I loved vanished with the houses



that were new last summer



and crumbled in the winds of autumn.















19







Even if the wind blows it doesn’t cool us



and the shade is meagre under the cypress trees



and all around slopes ascending to the mountains;







they’re a burden for us



the friends who no longer know how to die.















20







In my breast the wound opens again



when the stars descend and become kin to my body



when silence falls under the footsteps of men.







These stones sinking into time, how far will they drag me with them?



The sea, the sea, who will be able to drain it dry?



I see the hands beckon each drawn to the vulture and the hawk



bound as I am to the rock that suffering has made mine,



I see the trees breathing the black serenity of the dead



and then the smiles, so static, of the statues.















21







We who set out on this pilgrimage



looked at the broken statues



became distracted and said that life is not so easily lost



that death has unexplored paths



and its own particular justice;







that while we, still upright on our feet, are dying,



affiliated in stone



united in hardness and weakness,



the ancient dead have escaped the circle and risen again



and smile in a strange silence.















22







So very much having passed before our eyes



that even our eyes saw nothing, but beyond



and behind was memory like the white sheet one night in an enclosure



where we saw strange visions, even stranger than you,



pass by and vanish into the motionless foliage of a pepper tree;







having known this fate of ours so well



wandering among broken stones, three or six thousand years



searching in collapsed buildings that might have been our homes



trying to remember dates and heroic deeds:



will we be able?







having been bound and scattered,



having struggled, as they said, with non-existent difficulties



lost, then finding again a road full of blind regiments



sinking in marshes and in the lake of Marathon,



will we be able to die as we should?















23







A little farther



we will see the almond trees blossoming



the marble gleaming in the sun



the sea breaking into waves







a little farther,



let us rise a little higher.















24







Here end the works of the sea, the works of love.



Those who will some day live here where we end —



should the blood happen to darken in their memory and overflow —



let them not forget us, the weak souls among the asphodels,



let them turn the heads of the victims towards Erebus:







We who had nothing will school them in serenity.





