DEAR YANNIS

digital photoart: ralph murre

DEAR YANNIS

     to Yannis Ritsos’ poem “Absence”

by Stella Pierides

In our hands, you said, we hold

the shadow of our hands. I know

the cold absence of the marbles,

olives sprouting from the cracks.

The coffee grinder turns

slowly, gently. The moon

still kind, bathes our wrinkled

hearts in light. In silver. In sorrow.

Old souls sitting by the river

listening to the boat engine

starting, coughing, spitting,

dying. Starting again.

~ previously published at poetsonline.org

Seferis' Houses

artwork by ralph murre after a photo by (of?) george seferis

George Seferis, a Greek poet and diplomat

born in Smyrni (now Izmir), Turkey, won

the 1963 Nobel Prize for Literature

Seferis’ Houses
by Stella Pierides

The houses he had owned

they took away from him.

Seferis carried his home

on his back like a tortoise.

Iron beds in empty hotel rooms

rang through his lines,

and the sounds of loneliness–

the silent screams of souls

left to themselves

in the dark.

The houses he had owned they

took away from him.

He used his poetry,

he strung words from the stars

stared at them from afar.

Flowers of Agapanthus

he nailed on his lines,

and crickets, beating time

for the machine.

Only briefly did he go back to Smyrni.

For he knew. Seferis knew. He knew

you have to talk to the dead.

Hades is full of whispers–

the house is always watching.

And waiting.

~ appeared in Gathering Diamonds from the Well: London

   (New Gallery Books)

Girl

artwork: ralph murre

Girl

by Stella Pierides

She rarely smiles. A thick, white veil

frames her face, stops her innocence

from straying too far;

remembering the world outside.

Here she lives, here she is

and here she stays: four walls,

bench, Bible, rosary, Cross,

pair of clogs, glass, pebble,

compass, chair, table.

She would be lost, but

for her little pleasure:

a bowl of coconut ice

refectory Sister leaves

on her windowsill.

~ previously published in Off the Coast