Yórgos Houliáras
From: Letter (1995)
Borges in Crete
where he imagined he had started.
The stones were fiercely hot in the ruins
as the sun now penetrated everywhere
an enduringly uncovered past.
Here is where the labyrinth must have been,
he told himself lost in thoughts
no longer broken by the light.
We looked without seeing.
Here it must have been totally dark
just like now, I can see it,
he was saying while the cicadas noisily
sharpened the horns of the bull.
We were probably talking among ourselves
when with his hand tightly — just like then
had they been able to see him —
on the thread which no one even now
could see, if it existed,
he must have found his way to the exit.
Because we lost sight of him
for a moment, blinded as we were
by the sun in the mythical mirror
helping into flight the real
reflection of a world of illusion.
Translated by David Mason and Yórgos Houliáras
Page(s) 115
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