ODYSSEUS ELYTIS AEGEAN I Love The network of islands And the prow of its foam And the gulls of its dreams On the highest mast a sailor Whistles a song. Love Its song And the horizons of its voyage And the sound of its longing On its wettest rock the bride Waits for a ship Love Its ship And the nonchalance of its winds And the jib sail of its hope On the lightest of its waves an island Cradles the arrival. II Playthings, the waters In their shadow flow Speak with their kisses about the dawn That begins Horizoning- And the pigeons in their cave Rustle their wings Blue awakening in the source Of day Sun- The northwest wind bestows the sail To the sea The hair's caress In the insouciance of its dream Dew-cool- Waves in the light Revive the eyes Where life sails towards The recognition Life- III The surf a kiss on its caressed sand- Love The gull bestows its blue liberty To the horizon Waves come and go Foamy answer in the shell's ear. Who carried away the blonde and sunburnt girl? The sea-breeze with its transparent breath Tilts dream's sail Far out Love murmurs its promise-Surf THE MAD POMEGRANATE TREE Inquisitive matinal; high spirits à perdre haleine. In these all-white courtyards where the south wind blows Whistling through vaulted arcades, tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree That leaps in the light, scattering its fruitful laughter With windy willfulness and whispering, tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree That quivers with foliage newly born at dawn Raising high its colours in a shiver of triumph? On plains where the naked girls awake, When they harvest clover with their light brown arms Roaming round the borders of their dreams-tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tre, Unsuspecting, that puts the lights in their verdant baskets That floods their names with the singing of birds-tell me Is it the mad pomegranate tree that combats the cloudy skies of the world? On the day that it adorns itself in jealousy with seven kinds of feathers, Girding the eternal sun with a thousand blinding prisms Tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree That seizes on the run a horse's mane of a hundred lashes, Never sad and never grumbling-tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree That cries out the new hope now dawning? Tell me, is that the pomegranate tree waving in the distance, Fluttering a handkerchief of leaves of cool flame, A sea near birth with a thousand ships and more, With waves that a thousand times and more set out and go To unscented shores-tell me, is it the pomegranate tree That creaks the rigging aloft in the lucid air? High as can be, with the blue bunch of grapes that flares and celebrates Arrogant, full of danger-tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree That shatters with light the demon's tempest in the middle of the world That spreads far as can be the saffron ruffle of day Richly embroider with scattered songs-tell me, is it the pomegranate tree That hastily unfastens the silk apparel of day? In petticoats of April first and cicadas of the feast of mid-August Tell me, that which plays, that which rages, that which can entice Shaking out of threats their evil black darkness Spilling in the sun's embrace intoxicating birds Tell me, that which opens its wings on the breast of things On the breast of our deepest dreams, is that the mad pomegranate tree? AXION ESTI From THE GENESIS IN THE BEGINNING the light And the first hour when lips still in clay try out the things of the world Green blood and bulbs golden in the earh And the sea, so exquisite in her sleep, spread Unbleached gauze of sky Under the carob trees and the great upright palms There alone I faced the world wailing loudly … From the PASSION GREEK the language they gave me; poor the house on Homer's shores. My only care my language on Homer's shores. There bream and perch windbeaten verbs, green sea currents in the blue, all I saw light up in my entrails, sponges, jellyfish with the first words of the Sirens, rosy shells with the first black shivers. My only care my language with the first black shivers. There pomegranates, quinces, swarthy gods, uncles and cousins emptying oil into giant jars; and breaths from the ravine fragrant with osier and terebinth broom and ginger root sweet psalms with the very first Glory Be to Thee. There laurel and palm leaves censer and incense blessing the swords and muskets. On soil spread with vine-scarves, the smell of roasting lamb, Easter eggs cracking, and "Christ is Risen," with the first salvoes of the Greeks. and "Secret loves with the first words of the Hymn. My only care my language with the first words of the first Hymn! From THE GLORIA PRAISED BE the wooden table the blond wine with the sun's stain the water doodling across the ceiling the philodendron on duty in the corner The walls hand in hand with the waves a foot that gathered wisdom in the sand a cicada that convinced a thousand others conscience radiant like a summer PRAISED BE the heatwave hatching the beautiful boulders under the bridge the shit of children with its green flies a sea boiling and no end to it The sixteen deckhands hauling the net the restless seagull slowly cruising stay voices out of the wilderness a shadow's crossing through the wall THE ISLANDS with all their minium and lampblack the islands with the vertebra of some Zeus the islands with their boat yards so deserted the islands with their drinkable blue volcanoes Facing the meltemi with jib close-hauled Riding the southwester on a reach the full length of them covered with foam with dark blue pebbles and heliotropes Sifnos, Amorgos, Alonnisos Thasos, Ithaka, Santorini Kos, Ios, Sikinos PRAISED BE Myrto standing on the stone parapet facing the sea like a beautiful eight or a clay pitcher holding a straw hat in her hand The white and porous middle of day the down of sleep lightly ascending the faded gold inside the arcades and the red horse breaking free Hera of the tree's ancient trunk the vast laurel grove, the light-devouring a house like an anchor down in the depths and Kyra-Penelope twisting her spindle The straits for birds from the opposite shore a citron from which the sky spilled out the blue hearing half under the sea The long-shadowed whispering of nymphs and maples PRAISED BE, on the remembrance day of the holy martyrs Cyrilcs and Julitta, a miracle burning threshing floors in the heavens priests and birds chanting the Ave: Hail Girl Burning and hail Girl Verdant Hail Girl Unrepenting, with the prow's sword Hail you who walk and the footprints vanish Hail you who wake and the miracles are born Hail O Wild One of the depth's paradise Hail O Holy One of the islands' wilderness Hail O Mother of Dreams, Girl of the Open Seas Hail O Anchor-bearer, Girl of the Five Stars Hail you of the flowing hair, gilding the wind Hail you of the lovely voice, tamer of demons Hail you who ordain the Monthly Ritual of the Gardens Hail you who fasten the Serpent's belt of stars Hail O Girl of the just and modest sword Hail O Girl prophetic and daedalic