Santorini

translated by

EDMUND KEELEY and PHILIP SHERRARD

SANTORINI

(1935)

Bend if you can to the dark sea forgetting

the flute's sound on naked feet

that trod your sleep in the other, the sunken life.

Write if you can on your last shell

the day the name the land

and fling it into the sea so that it sinks.

Naked we found ourselves on the pumice-stone

watching the rising islands

watching the red islands sink

into their sleep, into our sleep.

Here we found ourselves naked, holding

scales weighted on the side

of injustice.

Instep of power, unshadowed will, calculated love

projects that ripen in the midday sun,

fate's courses at the slap of a new hand

on the shoulder;

to a land that was scattered, that can't endure,

to a land that was once our own land,

the islands are sinking, rust and ash.

Altars destroyed

and friends forgotten:

leaves of the palmtree in mud.

Allow your hands, if you can, to travel

here on time's curve with the ship

that touched the horizon.

When the dice have struck the slate,

when the lance has struck the breast-plate,

when the eye has recognized the stranger,

and love gone dry

in punctured souls;

when looking round you find

a circle the feet reaped

a circle the hands dead

a circle the eyes darkened;

when you can't any longer choose

the death you wanted for your own-

hearing a cry

even the wolf's cry-

your right and due;

allow your hands, if you can, to travel

free yourself from the faithless time

and sink,

sinks whoever raises the great stones.