Comments & Greek artists, Greek painters: Like a white stone in a well’s depths, a single memory remains to me...

Poetry & Greek painting, Greek artists, modern Greek artists


Yannis Stavrou, Thessaloniki ΙΙ, oil on canvas

Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded,
black death’s wing’s overhead.
Everything’s eaten by hunger, unsated,
so why does a light shine ahead?
Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)

Anna Akhmatova

I don’t know if you’re alive or dead

I don’t know if you’re alive or dead –
Can you be found on earth, though,
or only in twilit thoughts insteadbe mourned for,
in that peaceful glow.
All for you: the prayer daily,
the hot sleeplessness at night,
the white flock of poetry,
and the blue fire of my eyes.
No one was cherished more,
or tormented me so, no nothim,
who betrayed me to torture,
nor him,
who caressed and forgot.

Like a white stone in a well’s depths

Like a white stone in a well’s depths,
a single memory remains to me,
that I can’t, won’t fight against:
It’s happiness – and misery.
I think someone who gazed fullin my eyes,
would see it straight.
They’d be sad, be thoughtful,
as if hearing a mournful tale.
I know the gods changed peopleto things,
yet left consciousness free,
to keep suffering’s wonder alive still.
In memory, you changed into me.

Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded

Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded,
black death’s wing’s overhead.
Everything’s eaten by hunger, unsated,
so why does a light shine ahead?
By day, a mysterious wood, near the town,
breathes out cherry, a cherry perfume.
By night, on July’s sky, deep, and transparent,
new constellations are thrown.
And something miraculous will come
close to the darkness and ruin,
something no-one, no-one, has known,
though we’ve longed for it since we were children.