excerpt from
Stelios Karagiannis's
SECOND DISCOURSE
ON BEAUTY
*
Like the frost you're made of drops
of purest quiet water. Transparent and penetrating
you fall and cover me at night, like the frost
on the leaves. And yet I dare not touch you
with my hands, no, and not even with my body.
*
I'm the tree in blossom
in the forest of your sadness.
I'm the oil in the lamp
that lights up your face.
I'm the sorrowful song
night whispers to you
neath the stars.
*
Oh poetry! A tremblig sad cyclamen
unexpextedly in bloom
on the side of this
destroyed bridge.
Translated from Greek
by Mauro Giachetti