Pointless Lucidity
Yannis Ritsos
Martin McKinsey, Translator
Vague promises—who made them? and what for?
Others made by us (who to?). We're used to it.
We saw the mountains going by like overladen camels,
we saw the fawn in the moon. Mothballed ships
dirty the sunless waters with their rust. And up
on the hillside, behind the dark, vertical cypresses,
a plume of smoke held still, trying to bestow
some nonexistent meaning on us and on the world.
Ah—to think that silent beauty no longer takes us in.
Karlovasi, 7-18-87
