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« So you come, take me by the hand,
tear me away from the dark dealings of the night
and return me to my true friends. »
Dinos Christianopoulos (1931 - )
« Sweet Vision »
Alone now in this house
which has seen generation succeed generation.
Where did they go, O my soul,
all those men, women,
children ?
Will they come back to this garden,
where the keepers of maternal memory,
cherry trees, apple trees and firs, wallflowers and irises,
are still blooming ?
Are they watching over their tombs, are they floating in the foam
of the seasons, are they talking to the flowers, the birds,
the grasses in the fields ?
You too are gone !
You, my flamboyant love,
the pure, secret, sacred love of my life !
My heart beating fast, seated in the half-light,
motionless, sad, silent,
I hear your voice, your fiery, impassioned voice
coming down the invisible paths of springtime passions
into the immense night sleeping in the depths of my eyes,
into the brash fires of my ears,
into the purple sky of my beath,
into the steep ravines of my blood.
On my fervent lips, violent with tenderness,
I feel your words come to rest.
Your hands pour into mine the streaming air of your soul
and the heavy fires of desire suddenly
inflame our youthful bodies.
And I live again the biting frenzy of kesses,
the dizzying exaltations of the flesh !
Our bodies that offer themselves, burn, intertwine, melt together,
hang onto voluptuous imagining, lose themselves
in the powerful hope of eternal life, ebb
and flow like the waves of a wedding hymn
which they never want to come to an end !
Shaken by this ecstatic memory,
thirsty again for the thrilling warmth of your embrace,
I shudder, rise, go quickly to the wondow
tenderly overgrown with the caresses of the wisteria :
but outside it’s already night, O my love,
invincible, impenetrable, unfathomable night,
the quiet, drowsy climate of tragedies,
the limitless space of high, pure nostalgia !
And I, O my love,
infinitely small,
immeasurably large,
I feel more thane ever ready
for love !
Translated from the French by Norton Hodges
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