02 March 2014

The splintered islands of wild cherry and of seal


                             by Nikos Gatsos


ELEGY (1946)

God will have smiled at the fire in your eyes
Spring will have closed its heart like a pearl
from an ancient shore
Now, luminous in your sleep
in the frozen fields where the grapevines
become embalmed wings marble doves
dumb children of anticipation –
I wished you would come some evening covered in cloud
mist from stone frost from olive
because on your chaste brow
sometimes I would see
the snow of sheep and of lilies
But you passed from life like a tear of the sea
like summer lights and the last rains of May
though once you were one of its geranium waves
one of its sharp pebbles
one of its small swallows in a pathless wood
without dawn bells without lamps at dusk
with your passionate heart turned toward the unknown
to the shattered tusks of another shore
to the splintered islands of wild cherry and of seal




TAKE YOUR RING (1994) *
In memory of Maria Nomikou

God will have smiled at the fire in your eyes
Spring will have closed its heart like a pearl
        from an ancient shore
Now, luminous in your sleep
on the sands of the stars, you are a sharp pebble
in the embrace of Kelaino and Maia
Take your ring
Take the silver of the meadows to tint your face
Come to me to sleep
to sink perpetually into an springtime sea


Some summer night when I turn toward your eyes
lost on the shores of some pale galaxy
come like the sun of April in the window of my dream
with the ribbon round your throat
to greet the cranes that travel toward the unknown
to close up a rose just like doves sing a child to sleep
under the leaves of the grapevines on the banks of the
Aspropotamo
in the embrace of the platan trees by a cave of the Eurotas
Life was for you like a tear of the sea
like a fire in summer and a scarf in May
just so, you were one of its geranium waves
one of its sharp pebbles
one of its small swallows wandering in the woods
without fire for the dawn without stars for spring
with your hot heart turned toward the unknown
to the shattered tusks of another shore
to the dead children of wild cherry and seal  

* Draft for Elegy published after Gatsos' death in 1992.   


Translation, DW, 2006.







2 comments:

  1. How utterly gorgeous. I must look up the originals (which I hope live up to the music and imagery of these wonderful translations)...Thank you for sharing these. They moved me this snowy morning with bittersweet memories of childhood summers in Crete.

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  2. Thank you for commenting. I have translations of all his poetry, and the Greek, on my website http://www.nauplion.net/NIKOSGATSOS.html
    The links are sometimes peculiar as there are gremlins in the system & http has been replaced by ftp, but you can correct that as you go along.

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