…Like a plank off some sorry wreck,
so drifts our Old World
…Sure, it once loved
the ideals of humankind,
but the birds
were flying off ahead
Harsh, heartless world
that never once opened an umbrella
over the tree being drenched
But at night, how lovely it is,
the smell of earth…
Tasos Leivaditis, from the poem “Nighttime Redolence”
in the 1990 collection Autumntime Manuscripts
(published two years after his death)
…Σὰ σανίδα ἀπὸ θλιβερὸ ναυάγιο
ταξιδεύει ἡ γηραιά μας ἤπειρος
…Βέβαια ἀγάπησε
τὰ ἰδανικά της ἀνθρωπότητας,
ἀλλὰ τὰ πουλιὰ
πετοῦσαν πιὸ πέρα
Σκληρός, ἄκαρδος κόσμος,
ποῦ δὲν ἄνοιξε ποτὲ μίαν ὀμπρέλα
πάνω ἀπ᾿ τὸ δέντρο ποὺ βρέχεται
Ἀλλὰ τὰ βράδια τί ὄμορφα
ποῦ μυρίζει ἡ γῆ…
This Tasos Leivaditis poem was also set to music by Yorgos Tsangaris to create the 1993 song “But at Night…” sung by Vassilis Papakonstantinou and narrated by Yorgos Michalakopoulos.
Translated for (and taken from) the essay titled “I Am Nature (Who’s There?)” written by Thouli Misirloglou for the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival publication On the Threshold (TiDF25).
see also
A mutilated ⋮ death.
All that I ⋮ back.
Rose-like ⋮ all the flowers.
Words ⋮ seem unrecognisable.
arkhæio
ON THE THRESHOLD
