Now when you have nothing to say, when you have nothing
to show, to propose, to defend; now
when everything has been lost (and not only for you), now exactly
you may speak as you move around amid
the instruments of torture, revolving
with your small finger the stupid wheels
of broken watches or that large
suspended, unresisting wheel, somewhat still damp
ater they had raised it from the sunken ship—
now exactly, pulling at the rope hanging from the ceiling,
listening to the noise of the pulleys
in indeterminate positions above you, like the stars that night
when we had returned from the countryside and in the marble courtyard
two rows of black, high wooden chairs
had been placed in an austere arrangement,
and in the center of the golden closed coffin of the king
without flags, without the crown and the sword.
Yánnis Rítsos
Yánnis Rítsos was a Greek poet of considerable reputation. He wrote more than fifty volumes of poetry that have been translated into twenty-five languages. He was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1927 and was nine times nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. His notable works include Tractor (1934), Pyramids (1935), Epitaph (1936), and Vigil (1941–1953). He died in 1990.
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