Epiphany, 1937
The flowering sea and
the mountains in the moon’s waning
the great stone close to
the
the jar that refused to
go dry at the end of day
and the closed bed by the
cypress trees and your hair
golden; the stars of the
Swan and that other star, Aldebaran.
I’ve kept a hold
of my life, kept hold of my life, traveling
among yellow trees in
driving rain
on silent slopes loaded
with beech leaves,
no fire on their peaks;
its getting dark.
I’ve kept a hold
of my life; on your left hand a line
a scar at your knee,
perhaps they exist
on the sand of the past
summer perhaps
they remain there where
the north wind blew as I hear
an alien voice around
the frozen lake.
The faces I see do not
ask questions nor does the woman
Bent as she walks
giving her child the breast.
I climb the mountains;
dark ravines; the snow-covered
plain, into the distance
stretches the snow-covered plain,
they ask nothing
neither time shut up in dumb
chapels nor
hands outstretched to beg,
nor the roads.
I’ve kept a hold
of my life whispering in a boundless
Silence
I no longer know how to speak nor how to think; whispers
like the breathing of the
cypress tree that night
like the human voice of
the night sea on pebbles
like the memory of your
voice saying ‘happiness’.
I close my eyes
looking for the secret meeting-place of the waters
under the ice the
sea’s smile, the closed wells
groping with my veins for
those veins that escape me
there where the
water-lilies end and that man
who walks blindly across
the snows of silence.
I’ve kept hold
of my life, with him, looking for the water that touches you
heavy drops on green
leaves, on your face
in the empty garden,
drops in the motionless reservoir
striking a swan dead in its
white wings
living trees and your eyes
riveted.
This road has no end,
has no relief, however hard you try
to recall your childhood
years, those who left, those
lost in sleep, in the
graves of the sea,
however much you ask bodies
you’ve loved to stoop
under the harsh branches of
the plane trees there
where a ray of the sun,
naked, stood still
and a dog leapt and your
heart shuddered,
the road has no relief;
I’ve kept hold of my life.
The snow and the water
frozen in the hoofmarks of the horses.
--George Seferis
