WORLD POETRY DAY

 WORLD POETRY DAY

Αlthough poetry should generally be left without comments and without distortions, on this day, the World Poetry Day, I found and herewith quote a poem by Elytis, for which I can only make my small comment on the confirmation, through this poem, of the relationship between the Nobel Laureate poet and his compatriot, the ancient and world pioneer lyric poet, Sappho.

The following is a draft translation into English, only for the purposes of this post.

"Of the Moon of Mytilini" by Odysseas Elytis, 1980

Old and new ode

So I embrace my misery - I know:

Only to Thee will I tell it, my old sea moon.

There were on my island some women who if I am not mistaken.

A thousand years ago Sappho secretly

She brought you into the garden of our old house

And I could hear the pebbles in the water

That your name is Selana and that you hold

And play the mirror of sleep.

 

How on my back I remember coming out of July

I'd watch you come down where the hubbub shone

And flies over the rotting leaves

Myriads of myriads you were glowing! How sweet it all was! And deep

The noise of the wheel in the night...

 

Or times when you brought me the owl

To my lonely chamber

Lifting shadows from the furniture

To frighten me. But what was dead I did not know

 

What does Weather and Opacity mean

What the white of the Virgin Mary on the waters

The great hieroglyphics on your face

Love and death - well, I didn't know...

 

And I was so sad! Only it was night

Only the leaves were dripping only inexplicably

I had gone down to Mother

Her echoing depths the depthless

And the black piece that was distracting

From within me and into the well

And the dirt that crushed beneath my tread

Like a peacock swelling the rosemary

Only they hungered only they pressed my breast

I could feel tears welling up.

 

Away to the silver-roofed houses

The other children were lifted by the voice

Their voices were lifted by their harmonica

Alone on the stairs I cried like a persecuted man

And I begged you: take me, take me in your arms

And comfort me where I was born!

 

Not that I was unlucky - I mean

That the years upon me did not take hold like water

And my words in the light leaping

Like fishes longing to reach

Through the other sky - But where no one

To read no one knew heaven

My old sea moon, my old sea moon, I'll only tell it to you

For you have made me miserable - and I know:

 

My old home I still inhabit

And in the same creaks, I'm frightened

And the nights are still coming out in July

Wrapped in your black greenery I talk too much

 

Gone are gone, gone are the people

In the deep hidden cypresses

In slow shuddering the tide that the Night

Through the leaves is always drawing sparks

 

But where's the joy? Where is the new life?

But I witnessed when on the third height

One by one the air's lilies awoke

And half of me stayed out of Time

The valley that Death hid

To face again. The rotting Zodiac around me.

 

So far away on earth. The flow of the sea

And evil eyes in the smoke of the gardens. But what

The poet with his empty lips

Ever behind his grief: the Unspeakable.

Take me, take me in your arms

And comfort me where I was born.

 

That so light to the brow the touch was

So blah the flowers. So dripping

Of the eyes

Nice after happiness was gone

Away in the sea dawn

The kiss I held while my star was breaking

The slope of August so pure

 

So bitter in my skirt the peace

So black and small the people

With the foot forward that always goes on

All straight for Cocytus and Pyriphlegethon.

Because... this day deserves a PO.CRA.N. "POetic CRAck in the Normality"!!!