Vol 2 No 1 2008
Cornerstone
We split apart like two angry villages and see there
Hanging clouds like look-outs on the hills
And slowly the cart passed with horses
That said to one another: Will it rain or won’t it rain
Perhaps the boss is getting married perhaps he’s divorcing
How long will we have trouble with the foals
We have no god with a horselike face
With a mare’s tail and with a galaxy for a mane
To pension us from hauling
Let’s hurry at a gallop on the downward slope
Do you hear Greyspot do you hear how it’s breaking
The switch of the air? I don’t hear Oxhead
I went deaf in the war from a burst of shells
And I don’t hear out of my left ear
The lady of the house ought to be here but she’s away
You remember we put her in a wooden chest stretched out
In a place that seemed like a farm but there weren’t any trees
Only boards that looked like trees nailed together
And a wall all around plastered
With a tiny church in the middle
Let’s go over there so the lady can throw us a little hay
And spread straw on the ground in the stable
So we too can lie down and sleep a bit
So spoke the horses that don’t know death
And they said whatever passed through their empty heads
Pointless words to kill the time
Which the wind would take and scatter
On the fields and ditches
On the vineyards and haystacks
And the day the great thing proceeded
Bound hand and foot to the weather chariot of Zeus
And the water in the ditches
Hurried along to get there in time.
Nanos Valaoritis