Odysseas Elytis Poems

Freely beside me the vineyards are running and unbridled
Remains the sky. Wildfires trade pinecones and one
Donkey bolts uphill
for a little cloud
...

Often, in the Repose of Evening her soul took a lightness from
the mountains across, although the day was harsh and
tomorrow foreign.
...

Spotlight a

SCENE ONE: Open-air court in the ancient city of Athens. The accused arrive
and proceed among curses and cries of Death! Death!
...

MARIA NEFELE:
I walk in thorns in the dark
of what's to happen and what has
with my only weapon my only defense
...

IF ONLY MOTHER you could see me: as I was born, I
departed. I was far too little - besides who un-
derstands? - and far too many were the creeping
monsters with the lateral, slimy legs.

So, from the length of a life constructed with such dif-
ficulty all that remains is a half-ruined door and a lot
of large decaying water anemones. Therefrom I pass
and proceed - who knows? - to a womb sweeter than
my country.
...

Burnished day, conch of the voice that fashioned me
Naked, to step through my perpetual Sundays
Between the shores' cries of welcome,
Let your wind, known for the first time, blow freely
Unfold a lawn of tenderness
Where the sun can roll his head
Can enflame the poppies with his kiss
Poppies nourished by men so fine
That the sole mark on their bare chests
Is the blood of defiance that annuls sorrow
And attains the remembrance of liberty.

I spoke of love, of the rose's health, of the ray
That by itself goes straight to the heart,
Of Greece that steps so surely on the sea
Greece that carries me always
Among naked snow-crowned mountains.

I give my hand to justice
Diaphanous fountain, sublimest spring,
My sky is deep and changeless
All I love is incessantly reborn
All I love is always at its beginning.
...

Drinking the sun of Corinth
Reading the marble ruins
Striding across vineyards and seas
Sighting along the harpoon
A votive fish that slips away
I found the leaves that the sun's psalm memorizes
The living land that passion joys in opening.

I drink water, cut fruit,
Thrust my hand into the wind's foliage
The lemon trees water the summer pollen
The green birds tear my dreams
I leave with a glance
A wide glance in which the world is recreated
Beautiful from the beginning to the dimensions of the heart!
...

Here then am I
created for the young Korai and the Aegean islands,
lover of the deer's leaping,
initiate in the Mystery of olive leaves,
sun-drinker and locust-killer.
Here am I, face to face
with the black shirts of the ruthless
and of the years' empty belly that aborted
its own children, in heat!
Wind releases the elements and thunder assaults the mountains.
Fate of the innocent, alone again, here you are in the Straits!
In the Straits I opened my hands.
In the Straits I emptied my hands
and saw no other riches, heard no other riches
but cool fountains running.
Pomegranates or Zephyr or Kisses.
Each to his own weapons. I said:
In the Straits I'll open my pomegranates.
In the Straits I'll post Zephyrs as sentries.
I'll unleash the old kisses canonized by my longing!
Wind releases the elements and thunder assaults the mountains.
Fate of the innocent, you are my own Fate!
...

ENTERING MY SLEEPLESSNESS last night
just briefly, for a moment, the little goddess
with the mauve ribbon smiled at me
from a lad she's always passed me secrets

Then she vanished floating off to the right
going to empty the bin with my waste
- the soul's cigarette-ends and poem-ends -
there where haughty and full of past youth
the sea simmers.
...

I lived the beloved name
In the shade of the aged olive tree
In the roaring of the lifelong sea

Those who stoned me live no longer
With their stones I built a fountain
To its brink green girls come
Their lips descend from the dawn
Their hair unwinds far into the future

Swallows come, infants of the wind
They drink, they fly, so that life goes on
The threat of the dream becomes a dream
Pain rounds the good cape
No voice is lost in the breast of the sky

O deathless sea, tell what you are whispering
I reach your morning mouth early
On the peak where your love appears
I see the will of the night spilling stars
The will of the day nipping the earth's shoots

I saw a thousand wild lilies on the meadows of life
A thousand children in the true wind
Beautiful strong children who breathe out kindness
And know how to gaze at the deep horizons
When music raises the islands

I carved the beloved name
In the shade of the aged olive tree
In the roaring of the lifelong sea.
...