The Gypsy Girl
- by George Pavlopoulos
-translated by Peter Levi
I said to a gypsy
I want to be a gypsy
and have you
Can you eat bitter herbs without salt
for an evening meal, she said to me, and then lie down?
I can, I said to her
Can you lie down, she said
without weeping with cold
on the frozen mud?
I can, I said to her
And on that mud, can you set fire to my body and burn it up to ash?
And that too I can, I said to her
Can you throw my ashes into your wine, she said to me,
and get yourself so drunk you forget me?
No, that I cannot do, I said to her.
You will not make a gypsy, she told me.
Skopelos and Virgin
-by Skorda
when first you see it
across the water,
rising round and new above the mountain.
Open your mouth and swallow
while youth holds its roundness near,
and you are running fearless in the dark.
Hold it inside, it is still warm
and you will need its light,
there, inside you.
Down the road of time, somewhere
after you’ve aged, traveled,
Explored, discovered.
And the dust around your doorway
has been pounded hard and smooth under your feet.
When you find yourself growing weary and bored,
when your eyes see only ruins,
and your heart is empty.
You may believe, in your exhaustion,
that this is truth, at last.
That the mystery has unraveled,
leaving no wilderness to explore or tame.
All secrets have been shared,
the frontier has dissolved.
Know then, with these thoughts,
you have been swallowed.
The warm belly of the beast
comforts with confining darkness
and lulls with rhythmic sounds
Murmuring to you,
Curl up and sleep,
just go to sleep.
Shake your head,
stretch your legs,
do not sleep now.
Remember what you know.
You swallowed the moon,
you hold it inside you.
Not as a magpie hoarding shiny things,
or wearing the moon for beauty
or bartering the moon for wealth.
You swallowed the moon for this moment.
When you will walk to the water’s edge,
open your mouth, release the moon
and let its light build you a pathway
across the wine dark sea.
©Skorda 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
gypsy
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