Like so I speak of you and me
Because I love you and in love I know
How to enter in like the full moon
From everywhere, about your small foot in the boundless sheets How to pluck the jasmine–and I have the power
To blow the wind and take you in sleep through the moon’s passages and the sea’s secret colonnade –
Hypnotized tree of silvering spiders
The waves have heard of you
How you caress, how you kiss
Around the neck, around the bay
How you whisper the “what” and the “eh”
Always we the light and the shadow
Always you the little star and always I the dark vessel
Always you the harbor and always I the light shining from the right
The wet jetty and the glint on the oars High on the vine-laden house
The bound roses and cooling water
Always you the stone statue and always I the shadow that grows You the hanging shutter and I the wind that blows it open
Because I love you and I love you
Always you the coin and I the worship that gives it value
So much the night, so much the humming in the wind
So much the mist in the air, so much the stillness
Around the despotic sea
Heavenly arch full of stars
So much your faintest breath
That I no longer have anything else
Within these four walls, this ceiling and floor
But to call for you and for my own voice to hit me
To smell your scent and for people to fear
Because people can’t bear the untried And foreign and it’s early you hear It’s early still in the world my love
To speak of you and me.
IV
It’s early still in this world, do you hear me
They haven’t tamed the beast, do you hear me
My wasted blood and sharp, hear me, knife Like a ram running across the heavens
Breaking the tails of comets, hear me
I am, hear me
I love you, hear me
I hold you and I take you and I dress you
In the white gown of Ophelia, hear me
Where do you leave me, where do you go and who, hear me
Holds your hand above the flood
The enormous flames and volcanic lava
Will bury us, hear me, and the day will come
A thousand years later when we will be, hear me
Shining fossils, hear me
For the heartlessness of men to burnish, hear me
And throw above them in a thousand pieces
And on the waters one by one, hear me
I measure my bitter pebbles, hear me
And time is a great church, hear me
Where once the forms
Of saints
Shed true tears, hear me
The bells ring loudly, hear me
I cross a deep ford
Where the angels wait with candles and funeral psalms
I go nowhere, hear me
Neither or both together, hear me
This flower of the storm and, hear me
Of love Once and for all, we pick it
And it never comes to flower anywhere else, hear me
On another earth, on another star, hear me
There isn’t soil, there isn’t air
That we touch, the same, hear me
And no gardener was ever so lucky
To produce such a flower from such a winter, hear me
And such northern winds, only we, hear me,
In the middle of the sea
Only from the mere wish for love, hear me
Raised an entire island, hear me
With caves and capes and crags in bloom
Listen, listen
Who speaks in the waters and who cries, hear
Who seeks the other, who calls, hear
I am the one who calls and
I am the one who cries, you hear me
I love you and
I love you, hear me.
Parts III and IV taken from Elytis' poem Monogramma (Monogram)
Because I love you and in love I know
How to enter in like the full moon
From everywhere, about your small foot in the boundless sheets How to pluck the jasmine–and I have the power
To blow the wind and take you in sleep through the moon’s passages and the sea’s secret colonnade –
Hypnotized tree of silvering spiders
The waves have heard of you
How you caress, how you kiss
Around the neck, around the bay
How you whisper the “what” and the “eh”
Always we the light and the shadow
Always you the little star and always I the dark vessel
Always you the harbor and always I the light shining from the right
The wet jetty and the glint on the oars High on the vine-laden house
The bound roses and cooling water
Always you the stone statue and always I the shadow that grows You the hanging shutter and I the wind that blows it open
Because I love you and I love you
Always you the coin and I the worship that gives it value
So much the night, so much the humming in the wind
So much the mist in the air, so much the stillness
Around the despotic sea
Heavenly arch full of stars
So much your faintest breath
That I no longer have anything else
Within these four walls, this ceiling and floor
But to call for you and for my own voice to hit me
To smell your scent and for people to fear
Because people can’t bear the untried And foreign and it’s early you hear It’s early still in the world my love
To speak of you and me.
IV
It’s early still in this world, do you hear me
They haven’t tamed the beast, do you hear me
My wasted blood and sharp, hear me, knife Like a ram running across the heavens
Breaking the tails of comets, hear me
I am, hear me
I love you, hear me
I hold you and I take you and I dress you
In the white gown of Ophelia, hear me
Where do you leave me, where do you go and who, hear me
Holds your hand above the flood
The enormous flames and volcanic lava
Will bury us, hear me, and the day will come
A thousand years later when we will be, hear me
Shining fossils, hear me
For the heartlessness of men to burnish, hear me
And throw above them in a thousand pieces
And on the waters one by one, hear me
I measure my bitter pebbles, hear me
And time is a great church, hear me
Where once the forms
Of saints
Shed true tears, hear me
The bells ring loudly, hear me
I cross a deep ford
Where the angels wait with candles and funeral psalms
I go nowhere, hear me
Neither or both together, hear me
This flower of the storm and, hear me
Of love Once and for all, we pick it
And it never comes to flower anywhere else, hear me
On another earth, on another star, hear me
There isn’t soil, there isn’t air
That we touch, the same, hear me
And no gardener was ever so lucky
To produce such a flower from such a winter, hear me
And such northern winds, only we, hear me,
In the middle of the sea
Only from the mere wish for love, hear me
Raised an entire island, hear me
With caves and capes and crags in bloom
Listen, listen
Who speaks in the waters and who cries, hear
Who seeks the other, who calls, hear
I am the one who calls and
I am the one who cries, you hear me
I love you and
I love you, hear me.
Parts III and IV taken from Elytis' poem Monogramma (Monogram)
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου