kingofthewoods

Translating, working with cold-winter languages like German and Swedish, with fog and damp outside, I'm thirsty for light and colour, for a southern approach. So I read Odysseus Elytis' "Axion Esti" and dream of the Aegean:

"...And then I understood the surf and the long endless whisper of the trees
I saw the red water jugs lined up on the dock
and closer to the wooden window shutter
where I lay sleeping on my side
the northwind crowed more loudly
And I saw
Korai beautiful and naked and smooth as a beach pebble
with a bit of black in the nook of their thighs
and a rich spread of it along their shoulder-blades
who standing blew into the Conch
and others writing in chalk
strange, enigmatic words
ROES, ESA, ARIMNA
NUS, MORILMATITY, YELTIS
small voices of birds and hyacinths
or other words of July

"At the stroke of eleven
five fathoms deep
perch gudegon seabream
with huge gills and short boat-stern tails
Ascending I found sponges
and starfish
and slender speechless anemones
and higher up at the world's lip
rosy limpets
and half-opened pina clams and sea grass
'Precious words', he said to me, 'ancient oaths
spared by Time and the sure hearing of distant winds'
And near the wooden window shutter
where I lay sleeping on my side
I pressed a pillow tight to my chest
and my eyes filled with tears
I was in the sixth month of my loves
and in my belly a precious seed was stirring
THIS
the world the small the great

"'But first you will see the wilderness and give it your own meaning,' he said
'It will precede your heart
and will continue afterward
Know this above all:
what you save in the lightning
will last pure forever'"