YOUNG MEN OF SIDON, 1970 Poem by Manolis Anagnostakis

Actually, we shouldn't complain.
Your company's good and congenial, full of youth,
Fresh young girls - stout-bodied lads
All passion and love for life and action.
And your songs too, good, with meaning and substance
So very human, so moving,
About infants that die in other continents
About heroes killed in former times,
About revolutionaries, Black, Green and Yellow ones,
About Man's grief in his overall suffering.
It's especially to your credit that you involve yourselves
In the issues and struggles of our age
You directly and actively make your presence felt - in view
of which
I think you more than deserve
In twos, in threes, to play, to fall in love,
And unwind, for sure pal, after such exertion.
(They've aged us prematurely Yorgos, do you realise?)

Translated by David Conolly