One tap alone on the wall, many untold stories of the past

Yannis Ritsos poetry

So much time had passed. What we had brought with us from home
had holes, wore out, broke.

The sound of a door slamming on a sunlit day,
the voice that asked in the hallway, "How long will you be gone?"
the ivory comb a woman ran through her hair in front of a mirror,
the cigarette we shared by the window one spring evening
reaching for the tail of the Little Bear constellation,
the shadow of two hands beneath the lamp, falling between two plates of fruit —

we brought so many things with us in our bags —[...]

from Petrified Time (1949) [Collected Poems: Τα Επικαιρικα --- pg 295-296]
(translated by Scott King)

From one rented room to another — a suitcase,
a table, a very old bed, a chair;
the straw mattress stained by bed bugs and by sperm.
No one had a house of their own — everyone was constantly moving.
Our common fate — he says — it's reassuring. Just like this tree,
stationary, calm, blossoming, in a world of its own;
completely preoccupied with its flowering — it looks at nothing —
reflected in the large, inexplicable, glass door.

from Stones [Collected Poems:I ] 
(translated by Scott King)

 Life? — a wound in non-existence.

from Stones [Collected Poems:I ]
(translated by Scott King)