Read an Excerpt
Ritsos in Parentheses
By Edmund Keeley PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1979 Edmund Keeley
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-06397-3
CHAPTER 1
Parentheses, 1946-47
THE MEANING OF SIMPLICITY
I hide behind simple things so you'll find me;
if you don't find me, you'll find the things,
you'll touch what my hand has touched,
our hand-prints will merge.
The August moon glitters in the kitchen
like a tin-plated pot (it gets that way because of what I'm saying to
you),
it lights up the empty house and the house's kneeling silence —
always the silence remains kneeling.
Every word is a doorway
to a meeting, one often cancelled,
and that's when a word is true: when it insists on the meeting.
HUNGER
The night went by with its mouth full of speechless water. At
daybreak
the sun shone drenched on the coiled lines.
Face-shadows, mast-shadows, voyages —
we barely saw them — our hunger wasn't satisfied.
Somebody was shouting behind the mountain; somebody else
behind the trees; somebody else again, and again
the full length of the sunset — where should we run?
Which way first? Could we be the ones who were shouting? And the
mountains
grew larger and sharper like the teeth of the one who hungered.
A FACE
It's a lucid face, silent, entirely alone
like total solitude, like total victory
over solitude. This face
looks at you between two columns of still water.
And you don't know which of the two persuades you most.
SUMMER
The four windows hang rhyming quatrains
of sky and sea in the rooms.
A lone poppy is a watch
on the wrist of summer, telling
the hour of twelve noon. And so you feel
your hair caught up in the sun's fingers
holding you free in the light and the wind.
MAYBE, SOMEDAY
I want to show you these rose clouds in the night.
But you don't see. It's night — what can one see?
Now, I have no choice but to see with your eyes, he said,
so I'm not alone, so you're not alone. And really,
there's nothing over there where I pointed.
Only the stars crowded together in the night, tired,
like those people coming back in a truck from a picnic,
disappointed, hungry, nobody singing,
with wilted wildflowers in their sweaty palms.
But I'm going to insist on seeing and showing you, he said,
because if you too don't see, it will be as if I hadn't —
I'll insist at least on not seeing with your eyes —
and maybe someday, from a different direction, we'll meet.
SELF-SUFFICIENCY?
This particular morning has taken the sun on its back
climbing the Attic hills
like a young man loaded with his accordion.
Gone is last night with its pleasure,
and with its fear of its pleasure. Gone too
that sadness that had no hope of ending.
The pine trees, the sun, the windows — there they are.
Under the trees two chairs. Why two?
Ah yes, one to sit on, one for stretching your legs.
FINAL AGREEMENT
When the rain struck the windowpane with one of its fingers,
the window opened inward. At the far end
an unknown face, a sound — your voice?
Your voice distrusted your ear. The next day
the sun climbed down the fields, like a descent
of farmers with sickles and pitchforks. You came out into the road
shouting, not knowing what you were shouting,
stopping a moment with a smile under your voice
as under the pink, radiant umbrella of a woman
sauntering along the railing of a park.
There you recognized abruptly that this was your true voice
in accord with all the unsuspecting voices filling the air.
REMOLDING
What you call peacefulness or discipline, kindness or apathy,
what you call a shut mouth with teeth clenched,
indicating the mouth's sweet silence, hiding the clenched teeth,
is only the patient endurance of metal under the useful hammer,
under the terrible hammer — is your knowledge
that you're moving from formlessness toward form.
SUDDENLY
Quiet night. Quiet. And you had stopped
waiting. It was peaceful almost.
And suddenly on your face the touch, so vivid,
of the one who is absent. He'll come. Then
the sound of shutters banging on their own.
Now the wind has come up. And a little farther, the sea
was drowning in its own voice.
CIRCUS
Night circus, the lights, the music,
the sparkling cars along the full length of the avenue.
When the lights go out in the neighborhood,
when the last note has fallen like a dry leaf,
the façade of the circus seems
a huge set of false teeth. Then
the brass instruments sleep in their cases,
the animals are heard bellowing over the city,
the tiger in its cage fixes on its own shadow,
the animal-tamer takes off his costume and smokes a cigarette.
And every now and then the neighborhood lights up
when the eyes of the lions sparkle behind their bars.
AFTERNOON
The afternoon is all fallen plaster, black stones, dry thorns.
The afternoon has a difficult color made up of old footsteps halted
in mid-stride,
of old jars buried in the courtyard, covered by fatigue and straw.
Two killed, five killed, twelve — so very many.
Each hour has its killing. Behind the windows
stand those who are missing, and the j ug full of water they didn't
drink.
And that star that fell at the edge of evening
is like the severed ear that doesn't hear the crickets,
doesn't hear our excuses — doesn't condescend
to hear our songs — alone, alone,
alone, cut off totally, indifferent to condemnation or vindication.
UNDERSTANDING
Sunday. The buttons on jackets gleam
like scattered laughter. The bus left.
Some happy voices — strange
that you are able to listen and answer. Under the pine trees
a worker is learning how to play a mouth organ. A woman
said good morning to someone — such a simple and natural good
morning
that you too would like to learn how to play a mouth organ under
the pine trees.
No division or subtraction. To be able to look
outside yourself — warmth and peacefulness. Not to be
"only you" but "you too." A little addition,
a little practical arithmetic, easily grasped,
that even a child can manage to handle, playing his fingers against
the light
or playing that mouth organ for the woman to hear.
MINIATURE
The woman stood up in front of the table. Her sad hands
begin to cut thin slices of lemon for tea
like yellow wheels for a very small carriage
made for a child's fairy tale. The young officer sitting opposite
is buried in the old armchair. He doesn't look at her.
He lights up his cigarette. His hand holding the match trembles,
throwing light on his tender chin and the teacup's handle. The
clock
holds its heartbeat for a moment. Something has been postponed.
The moment has gone. It's too late now. Let's drink our tea.
Is it possible, then, for death to come in that kind of carriage?
To pass by and go away? And only this carriage to remain,
with its little yellow wheels of lemon
parked for so many years on a side street with unlit lamps,
and then a small song, a little mist, and then nothing?
WOMEN
Women are very distant. Their sheets smell of "good night."
They set the bread down on the table so that we don't feel they're
absent.
Then we recognize that it was our fault. We get up out of the chair
and say:
"You worked awfully hard today," or "Forget it, I'll light the lamp."
When we strike the match, she turns slowly and moves off
with inexplicable concentration toward the kitchen. Her back
is a bitterly sad hill loaded with many dead —
the family's dead, her dead, your own death.
You hear her footsteps creak on the old floorboards,
hear the dishes cry in the rack, and then you hear
the train that's taking the soldiers to the front.
TRIPTYCH
1. Until it turned dark
He held her hand in his. He didn't speak.
He heard farther off, and maybe inside him,
the abundant pulse of the sea.
The sea, the pine trees, the hills were her hand.
If he didn't tell her so, how could he hold her hand?
They were still, until it turned dark. Under the trees
there was only a statue with both hands broken off.
2. A Woman
That night: unapproachable, she kisses nobody —
alone in her fear that no one will be found to kiss her.
With five star-fingers she hides a tuft of white hair,
and she is so beautiful as the denial of her most beautiful self.
3. Why L· it our fault?
Under your tongue are the delicate sprigs of brill,
seeds from grapes and peach fibers.
In the shade cast by your eyelashes
there is warm country. I can lie down
and rest myself unquestioning, he said.
Now what does it mean, this "farther ahead"?
Why is it your fault, unsuspecting, for staying among the leaves —
beautiful, simple, in the golden shape of your heat?
And why is it my fault for going ahead in the night,
captive in my freedom, he said, the punished one punishing?
Poor Saturday night music coming from the neighborhood
dancing school,
poor music, frozen, with wooden shoes —
every time the unpainted door opens the music rushes out into the
street,
shivers under the light on the corner,
glances at a high window or at the night,
then lowers its look to the mud,
searching for something, waiting for something,
as though somebody's sick and the doctor's slow in coming.
Poor music. It's cold. Nobody opens a window
to treat you to a bit of lamplight, some black raisins,
to tell you: I remember — twenty or thirty years ago —
certain sounds from old carriages in the rain,
a blurred landscape painted on the glasses of Tellos Agras.
But the shoes are full of holes and muddy;
the couples hurry down the street; they don't listen.
A man stops up against the wall. No, he doesn't hear you.
He glues something to the wall. Only the knife
on the table is a thought, a flash of light.
Poor music; if you can fit,
come in through the hole in the neighborhood's elbow.
THE SAME STAR
Drenched, the roofs glisten in the moon's light. The women
wrap themselves in their shawls. They rush to hide in their houses.
If they hover a little longer on the threshold, the moon will catch
them crying.
That man suspects that in every mirror
there's another, transparent woman, locked in her nakedness
— much as you may want to wake her, she won't wake up.
She fell asleep smelling a star.
And he lies awake smelling that same star.
CONCLUSION
This window is alone.
This star is alone,
like a cigarette forgotten on the table —
smoking, smoking in the blue, alone.
And I'm alone, he said.
I light my cigarette, I smoke.
I smoke and meditate. I'm not alone.
WE WAIT
It turns dark slowly in the neighborhood. We can't sleep.
We wait for daybreak. We wait
for the sun to strike the tin of the sheds like a hammer,
to strike our foreheads, our hearts,
to become a sound, for the sound to be heard — a different sound,
because the silence is full of gun shots from unknown places.
CAN YOU?
We saw him kneeling in the most upright posture, blowing his
breath
under the huge copper pot in order to feed the fire
by consuming his own fire. Impatient, breathing hard,
constrained by his skin, unable to fit inside his skin.
The light trembled at the horizon as his ribs opened and closed.
His pulse swelled the skins of grapes
and made the new leaves whirl motionless.
So, bent over, he spent himself so that we could remain standing
upright,
you and me, without his once considering
that we should one day owe him something.
How then can you not remain upright at least?
THE THANKS
You won't say thanks to me
just as you don't say thanks to your heartbeats
carving out the face of your life.
But I will say thanks to you
because I know what I owe you.
That thanks is my song.
CHAPTER 2
Parentheses, 1950-61
CHILDHOOD CONVALESCENCE
Let us close our eyes a moment
so that we can hear the mother washing dishes in the kitchen
so that we can hear the knives and forks falling into the drawer
so that we can hear the rustle of her dress in the corridor
and the Holy Virgin's smile wandering in the iconostasis.
Tomorrow we won't be sick any longer. Look at the thermometer.
It's still warm from our armpit.
Our father who art in heaven
tell our little cousin to come tomorrow
so that we can take a short walk in the forest with the deer.
I will gather fresh almonds for her.
A blue deer will come,
our father, so that we can sleep
a blue blue deer
our father
who art
in heaven.
DELAY
We're always late. Our watch is at fault too — it's slow.
We search for our seat in the dark, like that time
in the pit of the theatre — the show had long since started —
stumbling over knees in the aisles and over wooden backrests.
And suddenly they turned on the lights during the clapping. And
we
standing up, still searching, as though they were clapping for us
who didn't deserve it. We settled in the first seat
stepping on the feet of an ugly old woman. She didn't yell.
SQUANDERING
We spent glances, words, movement.
At noon we would gaze toward the sea somehow at a loss
among the sounds of cicadas, among the leaves —
scattered looks so that we wouldn't see what we'd already seen.
In the evening the shade hid our separate shadows.
A long, narrow wooden bench
with unsold shirts for athletes
stood out of the way in the neighborhood square.
The night smelled of extinguished candles.
No other pretense was left to us but that of listening
to the hiccup of a star behind the door.
MODE OF ACQUISITION
Whatever you hold in your hands
so carefully, with so much love,
yours so totally, my companion,
you must give away
in order for it to become yours.
[Greek Text Not Reproducible in ASCII].
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ritsos in Parentheses by Edmund Keeley. Copyright © 1979 Edmund Keeley. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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