A great pain has fallen upon Greece.
So many bodies dropped
Into the jaws of the sea, into the jaws of the earth
So many souls
given to the grindstones, like grains of wheat
And the rivers were flooding muddy with blood.
For a linen waving, a nebula,
A fluttering of a butterfly, a swan’s feather
For an empty tunic, for some Eleni.
And my brother?
Nightingale, nightingale, nightingale
What is God? What is not a God? And what is in between them?
“Songbirds don’t let you sleep in Platres”.
A bird in tears,
Upon Cyprus, sea-kissed
which was destined to remind me of my homeland,
I stood alone with this fairy tale,
If it is true that it’s a fairy tale,
If it is true that humans wouldn’t fall in again for
the old deception of the Gods again;
If it is true
that some other Teukrus, years after,
Or some Ajax, or Priamus, or Ekavi or some stranger,
anonymous who nevertheless has seen Scamander flooded with corpses,
isn’t in his fate to hear to messengers coming to say
that so much pain, so many lives
went to the abyss
for an empty tunic, for some Eleni.
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