Yannis Ritsos
from VIGILANCE (1941-2)
The Silent Season
2.
Rainy Weather
Sit by the window. The first rains of autumn absolve the trees
in the twilight.
A leaf turns yellow in your hands. You no longer know the day's
gravity.
The two keys on the table brood on all the things locked away
at the hour when the spiders turn their webs inward
and the ashtray takes its place in the room
just as a star takes its place in the heavens.
Over here every word falls soundlessly amid the silence
like the ash of a burnt letter from someone's sad fingers.
It would be better then to gather our days, to fold them
as we fold summer clothes to stow in a chest,
to clasp our hands on our knees,
now that the clouds are yawning on the roofs,
now that the silence is etched so deeply into your face,
like the silence of a student's room
when outside the deluge intensifies.
Here the year's cast-offs are assembled -
it is quiet over here, almost warm,
you can close your eyes and listen to the night
approaching -
that distinctive footfall on broken heels -
and the voice behind her threadbare veil
has an aloof civility
and there is a silent happiness behind the closed blinds,
like touching with sorrowing fingers amid the darkness
that very hand, the tortured hand of our old friend.
Perhaps outside a few autumn stars linger,
like a few drops of cognac in raki glasses in an empty room
when the guests have already left with Nausicaa,
a sprig of light on her shoulder,
and the mother remains all alone in the evening mirror,
to unhook her smile with a weary hand,
with the same movement as every evening when she removes
her hairpins.
Later the wind abruptly subsided
and the whine of the dog was heard in the courtyard of the hanged man,
and later in the room the sound of the clock
like rain falling drop by drop into a leaden sea.
Throw another blanket on the bed.
At daybreak it's chilly. Now what were we saying?
Ah, yes, I nearly forgot that letter.
The postman brought it this afternoon. It might be from my sister.
Your knees under the table are as embittered
as coils of rope on the quay in winter,
and lamps accidentally left alight at dawn
in a seaside room with an empty canary cage
and a stubbed-out cigarette on the tin wash-stand.
But I don't want to, I can't stay in here.
That photograph that has dozed off inside its smile,
the little glint on grandfather's abandoned spectacles,
the coffee cup with the cigarette butts, the old newspaper -
How to reverse the evening's face in the mirror?
Again the spectacles, the cigarette butt - the same.
Within the mirror nothing changes.
A falling star lighted up a sea-captain's mouth clenched
on his pipe - he doesn't speak,
a horse becomes lost alone in the forest,
an eye in the pit of night
takes aim.
Nobody speaks. Riding at anchor, the ship shows no lights.
Gently, gently. Give me your hand, here is mine. Do not speak.
But you've to wake early tomorrow. The dawn cannot wait -
tomorrow when the light falls on the trees,
tomorrow when the windows to seaward say thank you to the sun.
But the sun never ever pardons so much tardiness.
- Freely translated from the Modern Greek -