Fokas Nikos poetry
SUMMER ’99
With my own free will, each morning I create
The vineyards and the olive groves as though on a black canvas,
– Just like a painter, leaving no gaps. From time to time
A colorful bird (that too my own invention)
Falls heavily on the foliage.
Like a kite out of the stillness.
Other creations, (open sea, sky, mountain slopes,
Visages of this land, parents and friends)
Through my free will they all appear perfectly natural
– While the breeze (yet another invention of mine)
Drifting across the face of the sea
Ruffles in places the seamless serenity.
With my own free will, in this stagnant season for the senses
(Altogether a construct of poetic wilfulness)
Tears flowing I finally create
The fresh face of a girl; the guileless gaze,
The unready lips, the taut arc of the neck, that petulance
Innocent and precocious of the flesh.
And when my will tires itself out, and leaves me,
Like the day-labourer who dog-weary
Returns home to rest till the break of the new dawn,
I too, a day-labourer you might say
Exhausted by this daily toil
Return straight to my grave as to my home.
The vineyards and the olive groves as though on a black canvas,
– Just like a painter, leaving no gaps. From time to time
A colorful bird (that too my own invention)
Falls heavily on the foliage.
Like a kite out of the stillness.
Other creations, (open sea, sky, mountain slopes,
Visages of this land, parents and friends)
Through my free will they all appear perfectly natural
– While the breeze (yet another invention of mine)
Drifting across the face of the sea
Ruffles in places the seamless serenity.
With my own free will, in this stagnant season for the senses
(Altogether a construct of poetic wilfulness)
Tears flowing I finally create
The fresh face of a girl; the guileless gaze,
The unready lips, the taut arc of the neck, that petulance
Innocent and precocious of the flesh.
And when my will tires itself out, and leaves me,
Like the day-labourer who dog-weary
Returns home to rest till the break of the new dawn,
I too, a day-labourer you might say
Exhausted by this daily toil
Return straight to my grave as to my home.
Translation: Nikos Fokas & Don Schofield and John Theocharis
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