Yánnis Patílis
From: The Scribe's Mirror (1989)
Persephone
to Elsa
If only I could get lost
Like all who pick flowers get lost
He thought
Crossing the traffic lights in Omonia Square
To go down
Not down to Hades (not yet)
But down Omonia's immobile escalators
If only I could become a grain of Spring
Which condescended even
To the dusty tents of Kerameikos St.
He said as he took
A leaflet from a young woman
Calling all textile workers
To one more twenty-four hour strike
If only I had twenty-four hours
Of absolute life
Caressing the vibrant breast
Of this day here
Settled with divine violence
On the eyes
He though, head down, as he passed
By the wooden flute
Accompanying the tape player
Of a blind man adorned with lottery tickets
If only I had some luck, some light
From that other one kind residing inside the other
As I climb the stairs up
To the world above
A virgin child to get lost
Like all who pick flowers got lost
And once again to find myself
Upon the earth.
Spring 1988
Translated by Stathis Gourgouris
Page(s) 75-76
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