Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Perhaps - Yannis Ritsos


From The Kenyon Review, New Series, Winter, 1995, Vol. XVII, No. 1
Translated from modern Greek by Martin McKinsey
It’s quiet out tonight. At the window, motionless, the black swan
with glittering eyes. The clock has stopped. Your fingers
add up to ten. Now that’s something. But the curtain’s faded.
Red reverts to gray. Friends disappear.
The young dairyman got drafted. Maria got divorced. One by one
the portraits of the dead are stored in the basement
with the cockroaches and the rats. If, however, the woman
unbraids her hair in front of the mirror,
perhaps a thread of music will find its way from the other side.
Karlόvasi, 8 July 1987

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