We present this work in honor of the 30th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Nikos Gatsos Greek 1911 – 1992
When you reach that other world, don’t become a cloud, don’t become a cloud, and the bitter star of dawn, so that your mother knows you, waiting at her door. Take a wand of willow, a root of rosemary, a root of rosemary, and be a moonlit coolness falling in the midnight in your thirsting courtyard. I gave you rosewater to drink, you gave me poison, eaglet of the frost, hawk of the desert.
Among them too are the Muses For everywhere To flute and string the young girls Are dancing, In their hair the gold leaves of the bay: The dance whirls them away: Age or disease, no toil, Battle or ill-day’s luck Can touch them, they Are holy, they Will outlast time, exempted From the anger of the Goddess And all decay.
Here the hero came With the head That shocked a royal house, turning King and all into stone: It was long long ago, if Time means anything; Long, long ago.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 115th birthday.
Melissanthi Greek 1907 – 1991
Each time I sinned a door half-opened and the angels who hadn’t thought me beautiful in my chastity tipped the vessels of their flowering souls. Each time I sinned a door seemed to open and tears of compassion dripped in the grass. But if the sword of my remorse pushed me from the skies each time I sinned a door half-opened.: the people thought me ugly; only the angels thought me beautiful.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 120th birthday.
Maria Polydouri Greek 1902 – 1930
Today just before the light filled up the sky, far off I heard bells sounding in the city. Bells… why did I notice? As if sowing hate the last shadows slowly and dolefully moved on. Where have I left my sweet, childlike soul, in what season, with what bell’s tune entwined? In what season… and today to say my prayers I stayed on bended knee in sorrow. A prayer to beauty, to a forgotten mother, to ignorance, to a smile, to the voice of a dream, listening to the day’s bell of anguish which sadly tolled an untimely death.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 105th birthday.
Takis Sinopoulos
Greek
1917 – 1981
Come with me tonight, I’ll embrace you with my leaves and with my clouds. I’ll wrap you round in countless metamorphoses and voices, until merely your white bones remain in the moon’s foam.
When God in heaven brought light to earth and the true voice of wondrous men was accomplished, a life-producing radiance filled the whole world through the words of (other) prophets, the evangelists. For all robust men embraced one God, the Heavenly Father, Lord of all, and his Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit were washed with water from the many sins staining their bodies.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 110th birthday.
Nikiforos Vrettakos Greek 1912 – 1991
My soul dances today, winged, looking to alight on a branch of light, to hear, see, say whatever can be heard, seen, said. It’s good to know, and know well, that the thing you are was hatched out of darkness.
Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span, Protracted with sorrow from day to day, Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous, Sickly calamitous creatures of clay! Attend to the words of the Sovereign Birds, (Immortal, illustrious, lords of the air), Who survey from on high, with a merciful eye, Your struggles of misery, labor, and care. Whence you may learn and clearly discern Such truths as attract your inquisitive turn; Which is busied of late with a mighty debate, A profound speculation about the creation, And organical life, and chaotical strife, With various notions of heavenly motions, And rivers and oceans, and valleys and mountains, And sources of fountains, and meteors on high, And stars in the sky… We propose by and by, (If you’ll listen and hear,) to make it all clear. And Prodicus henceforth shall pass for a dunce, When his doubts are explained and expounded at once.
Our antiquity proved, it remains to be shown That Love is our author and master alone; Like him we can ramble, and gambol and fly O’er ocean and earth, and aloft to the sky; And all the world over, we’re friends to the lover, And when other means fail, we are found to prevail, When a Peacock or Pheasant is sent as a present. All lessons of primary daily concern You have learnt from the Birds, and continue to learn, Your best benefactors and early instructors; We give you the warning of seasons returning. When the Cranes are arranged, and muster afloat In the middle air, with a creaking note, Steering away to the Libyan sands, Then careful farmers sow their lands; The crazy vessel is hauled ashore, The sail, the ropes, the rudder and oar Are all unshipped and housed in store. The shepherd is warned, by the Kite reappearing, To muster his flock, and be ready for shearing. You quit your old cloak at the Swallow’s behest, In assurance of summer, and purchase a vest. For Delphi, for Ammon, Dodona, in fine For every oracular temple and shrine, The Birds are a substitute equal and fair, For on us you depend, and to us you repair For counsel and aid when a marriage is made, A purchase, a bargain, a venture in trade: Unlucky or lucky, whatever has struck ye, An ox or an ass that may happen to pass, A voice in the street, or a slave that you meet, A name or a word by chance overheard, If you deem it an omen, you call it a Bird; And if birds are your omens, it clearly will follow That birds are a proper prophetic Apollo.
Terpsichore looks kindly on me as I sing noble, heroic things to the white-robed women of Tanagra, and the city rejoices mightily at the keen melody of my voice.
Will you sleep forever? You were not like that, Corinna, in the old days.
I blame Myrtis, gifted though she is, that she, a woman, dared take on Pindar.