Between going and staying the day wavers,
              in love with its own transparency.
              The circular afternoon is now a bay
              where the world in stillness rocks.

              All is visible and all elusive,
              all is near and can't be touched.
              Paper, book, pencil, glass,
              rest in the shade of their names.

              Time throbbing in my temples repeats
              the same unchanging syllable of blood.
              The light turns the indifferent wall
              into a ghostly theater of reflections.

              I find myself in the middle of an eye,
              watching myself in its blank stare.

              The moment scatters. Motionless,
              I stay and go: I am a pause.

              Octavio Paz

Agora, Athens by Ben Hein

                             

                          “And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.”

    
               
                            William Wordsworth

 
                          from I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

Ben van den Bussche

              
              Interval of Joy


              We were happy all that morning

              God how happy.
              First the stones the leaves and the flowers shone

              and then the sun

              a huge sun all thorns but so very high in the heavens.


              A Nymph was gathering our cares and hanging them on the trees

              a forest of Judas trees.

              Cupids and satyrs were singing and playing
              and rosy limbs could be glimpsed amid black laurel

              the flesh of young children.


              We were happy all that morning;
              the abyss was a closed well

              in which the tender foot of a young faun stamped

              do you remember its laughter: how happy we were!


              And then clouds rain and the damp earth;

              you stopped laughing when you reclined in the hut,
              and opened your large eyes and gazed

              on the archangel wielding a fiery sword
 

              "We cannot explain it," you said, "We cannot explain it,
              "
We find people impossible to understand

              however much they may play with colors

              they are all black".


              George Seferis
              translated by Kimon Friar

              Διάλειμμα Χαρᾶς

              Πεντέλη, ἄνοιξη

              Εἴμασταν χαρούμενοι ὅλοι ἐκεῖνο τὸ πρωὶ

              θεέ μου πόσο χαρούμενοι.

              Πρῶτα γυάλιζαν οἱ πέτρες τὰ φύλλα τὰ λουλούδια

              ἔπειτα ὁ ἥλιος

              ἕνας μεγάλος ἥλιος ὅλο ἀγκάθια μὰ τόσο ψηλὰ στὸν οὐρανό.

              Μιὰ νύμφη μάζευε τὶς ἔνοιές μας καὶ τὶς κρεμνοῦσε στὰ δέντρα

              ἕνα δάσος ἀπὸ δέντρα τοῦ Ἰούδα.

              Ἐρωτιδεῖς καὶ σάτυροι παῖζαν καὶ τραγουδοῦσαν

              κι ἔβλεπες ρόδινα μέλη μέσα στὶς μαῦρες δάφνες

              σάρκες μικρῶν παιδιῶν.

              Εἴμασταν χαρούμενοι ὅλο τὸ πρωΐ

              ἡ ἄβυσσο κλειστὸ πηγάδι

              ὅπου χτυποῦσε τὸ τρυφερὸ πόδι ἑνὸς ἀνήλικου φαύνου

              θυμᾶσαι τὸ γέλιο του: πόσο χαρούμενοι!

              Ἔπειτα σύννεφα βροχὴ καὶ τὸ νοτισμένο χῶμα

              ἔπαψες νὰ γελᾶς σὰν ἔγειρες μέσα στὴν καλύβα

              κι ἄνοιξες τὰ μεγάλα σου τὰ μάτια κοιτάζοντας

              τὸν ἀρχάγγελο νὰ γυμνάζεται μὲ μία πύρινη ρομφαία-

              «Ἀνεξήγητο» εἶπες «ἀνεξήγητο

              δὲν καταλαβαίνω τοὺς ἀνθρώπους

              ὅσο καὶ νὰ παίζουν μὲ τὰ χρώματα

              εἶναι ὅλοι τους μαῦροι».

              Γίωργος Σεφέρης