that is what’s on our mind.
In the afternoon five old men called me over
made me coffee gave me a cigarette
talked about the monastery of St. Dionysos up in Litohoros
about the saint’s watery hand that sent away the bad shepherds –
Five old men with gentle eyes and white moustaches
who make cigarette cases day and night make frames
piece together tiny scraps of colored hay
small as the head of a pin — hard things to work with
and some pots with geraniums, two Greek flags
one for land and one for sea, some five-pointed stars
they want to make a dove, too — they can’t do it –
they’re good old men — I wasn’t listening to what they said
and that is what’s on my mind. They called me “child.”
I couldn’t say “father.” Old master Thanasis says
he’ll make me a stooclass="underline" “So you don’t have to sit on the ground, son,
and get your pants all dirty.”
And now I’m thinking of all the things I, too, should be making
how I should get my pants so dirty
that master Thanasis won’t care if I sit on the ground
and I’ll be able to call him “father.”
Then I figure I’d be worthy of sitting on his stool
as if astride the branch of a plane tree at the monastery
and I’ll shrug these troubling things from my shoulders
the way I brush off that little spider creeping along my arm
and I won’t be at all cold in winter.
November 5
Our morning passed in quiet conversation.
I read what I’d written yesterday. I liked
that part about the five old men. I found it
simple and real. And I silently wished that’s how things
might actually have happened.
Now it’s getting dark.
Time for me to add up my spendings and earnings.
I’ve never been good at accounting. I get confused.
I know that many consider me an enemy.
But those who love me are more
and are better.
I am indebted to both.
But I still can’t find the word
that would suffice for both them and me. Which is how
I know my debts are multiplying.
How could my song reach that far
if I didn’t get there first?
Fine. Fine. The weather’s good.
Tomorrow or the next day we’ll talk again. Now
I’m watching the color of the evening change on my page.
A branch scratches my cheek with its nail.
So then, joy still has roots.
The guard’s shadow falls on the barbed wire.
November 6
Nothing. Nothing. We were wrong.
The words are narrow, our beds are narrow –
you can’t turn onto your other side.
Until now we said:
if we all work together at carrying these stones
the stone within will melt. Nothing.
I count the fingers of my two hands.
I find them correct.
I don’t know how to count all the rest.
Which means it doesn’t add up.
At the end of this tallying hangs a curse.
November 6
Evening. The bell for the evening meal.
Shouts from the boys playing soccer.
Was it yesterday? — I don’t remember; — a stunning sunset
so violet, so gold, so rosy.
We stood there. We watched. We talked
alone, alone, tossing our voices into the wind
so as to tie things together, to unbind our hearts.
A letter arrived in the yard:
Panousis’s son was killed.
Our talk nestled against the walls.
The sunset suddenly nothing.
The night had no hours. The knot loosened.
Panousis’s aluminum plate grew cold on the table.
We lay down. We covered ourselves. We loved one another
around that untouched plate that no longer steamed.
Around midnight the black cat came in through the window
and ate some of Panousis’s food.
Then the moon came in
and hung motionless over the plate.
Panousis’s arm on the blanket
was a severed plane tree.
Well then — must we really be so sad
in order to love one another?
November 7 — Evening
Sunday passed quietly. The boys played soccer.
I painted an almond branch on a wooden cigarette case.
I’m sure Barba Drosos will like it.
Though he might like a bird with an open mouth better.
I like to think about what Barba Drosos would like.
I’m happy and know that I’m happy –
it doesn’t get in the way of my happiness at all.
A good moon gives me light to write by.
I have a telegraph pole as my friend.
I hear some bells — from the sheep
grazing down in the field. The sheep
are my younger brothers. I’m thinking
of a new fairy tale with bitter laurels
with sheep and a wild girl
her braids wet under the moon.
Why am I still speaking? Am I afraid?
I have to go for the evening meal. Goodnight moon.
Goodnight bells. Panousis is calm.
November 8
We’ve almost gotten used to the barbed wire the faces the thorns.
We don’t need to shave so often.
The days and the hands move slowly. We’re used to it.
Bit by bit the leaves on the grape vine turned yellow.
Now they’re brown and red. The wind
blows through them in the afternoon. We struggle
to bind our attention to a color to a stone
to the way an ant walks. A bumblebee
creeping along a dry leaf makes as much noise
as a passing tram. That’s how we realize
what silence has settled within us.
Strange weather — almost like summer.
Sunshine hangs in sheets from the bare-branched almond trees.
Scattered clouds in the bright sky like large censored postcards
WRITE ONLY TEN LINES — the rest
we’ll have to pack away in mothballs
we’ll need it soon we’ll need it. For now we need
undershirts and woolen socks woolen gloves
because from the way the stones sit in the morning
we’re sure winter is on its way.
Last night they took away our soccer ball.
The playing field with the pennyroyal is deserted.
Only the wind butts the moon with its head.
During dinner under the lamp
hands crumble the insides of bread
with a secret restrained impatience
as if winding an invisible enormous stopped watch.
November 9
Last night the newspapers arrived.
The most recent dated November 4. The hands run
the mouths run and the eyes. The news from China
about Mukden, the Yangtze, Peking — these names
we loved them so dearly last night
and loved one another beneath the slanted eyes of China.
What they say about the houses that become ships
we saw last night with our own eyes
they lit some little paper lanterns over the cupboard.
What use is writing to us now. Tonight
we learned again some things that the pen can’t grasp.
Tonight we learned that we have to be happy