Nikiforos Vrettakos

Υour Small Town

Truly, you couldn't possibly leave behind the time
you were afraid of the wolf and you were anxiously awaited the angel.
You studied the customs and traditions of history,
you passed under the arrows of contemporary events,
you've traveled... and yet you couldn't cast off
the small town of your childhood from your innermost,
the town made up of kind faces, bare or verdant plains, celestial things,
along with the esteemed old man sated with reflection and perception,
and high up, Taygetos, zooming proudly.

Truly, how smugly you would've felt if only you could,
turning your back to gigantic cities, had returned
to the things that were given to you and had weaved
your beautiful dream, if you had returned
to the hill where you sat , at one time, and reigned in peace,
...Returned under their gleeful glances
to gather your evening wood.

Manolis Anagnostakis

The Morning

In the morning
at 5
the dry
metallic echo
after the loaded trucks
that shattered the doors of sleep.
And the final "adieu" of the day before
and the final steps on the damp tiles
and your last letter
in the arithmetic notebook
from your childhood
like the grill on the small window
which slides up the parade of the morning's
joyous sun with perpendicular black lines.