When the Watchman Saw the Light

ISSUE: Winter 2004

Winter and summer the watchman sat on the roof
of the palace of Atreidas and looked out. Now he tells
the joyful news. He saw a fire flare in the distance.
And he is glad, and his labor is over as well.
It is hard work night and day,
in heat or cold, to look far off
to Arachnon for a fire. Now the desired
omen has appeared. When happiness
arrives it brings a lesser joy
than expected. Clearly,
we’ve gained this much: we are saved from hopes
and expectations. Many things will happen
to Atreidas. One doesn’t have to be wise
to surmise this. So, no exaggeration.
The light is good, and those that will come are good.
Their words and deeds are also good.
And we hope all will go well. But
Argos can manage without Atreidas.
Houses are not eternal.
Many, of course, will have much to say.
We’ll listen. But we won’t be deceived
by the Indispensable, the Only, the Great.
Some other indispensable, only, and great
is always instantly found.

[1900]

C. P. Cavafy

C. P. Cavafy (1863-1933) was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and grew up in Liverpool, England and Constantinople (now Istanbul). Considered one of the most accomplished Greek poets of the twentieth century, he published little work during his lifetime and prefered to circulate poems among close friends. However, he had a long friendship with British novelist E. M. Forester, who was impressed with Cavafy’s poems set during antiquity and wrote an essay called “The Poetry of C. P. Cavafy” that praised him for bucking traditional representations of ancient Greece. Cavafy’s work was also starkly personal, and many of his poems dealt explicitly with sex and homosexuality. His best-known poems, “Ithaca” and “Waiting for the Barbarians,” inspired generations of modern Greek poets who came after him, including Nobel laureate George Seferis.

Aliki Barnstone

Aliki Barnstone is working on a new translation of C. P. Cavafy, entitled One of Their Gods: The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy. Her books of poetry include Blue Earth (Iris, 2004), Wild With It (Sheep Meadow, 2002), and Madly in Love (Carnegie Mellon, 1997). She teaches in the International Creative Writing Program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.