THE MONOGRAM (1971) Odysseas Elytis
Translated by: Constantinos Neophytou 
I’ll mourn forever -do you hear me?- for you, alone, in Paradise
I
Like a keymaster, Fate will twist
The wrinkles in the palm
Time will concede for a moment
How else, if people love each other
Will the heavens present our guts
And will innocence strike the world
With the scythe of the black death.
II
I mourn the sun and I mourn the years coming
Without us and I sing the others gone by
If it’s true
Knowing bodies and boats that sweetly glided
The guitars that flickered in the rain
The “believe me”s and the “don’t”s
Once in the air, once to the music
The two small animals, our hands
That tried secretly to climb one another
The cool pot through garden gates ajar
And the pieces of the seas coming together
Beyond the stone walls, behind the fences
The anemone sitting on your hand
And shuddered three times as purple three days above the waterfalls
If this song is true
The wooden beam and the square tapestry
On the wall, the Mermaid with the undone hair
The cat looking at us in the darkness
Child with incense and a red cross
During twilight at the unapproachable rocks
I mourn the clothes I touched and the world came to me.
III
So I speak of you and me
Because I love you and in love i know
How to head in like a Full Moon
From all directions, for your little foot in the vast sheets
Plucking jasmine – and I have the strength
Dozed off, to blow and take you
Through moonlit passages and secret sea caves
Hypnotized trees with silvery spiders
The waves have heard of you
How you carress, how you kiss
How you whisper the “what” and the “eh”
Around your neck, at the bay
We are always the light and the shade
You’re always the little star and I’m always the dark vessel
You’re always the port and I’m the light on the right
The wet jetty and the glitter on the oars
High on the vine-laden house
The bound roses, the cooling water
You’re always the stone satatue and I’m always the growing shadow
You the hanging shutter, I the wind that opens it
Because I love you and I love you
You’re always the coing and I’m the worship that gives it value:
As the night, as the roar in the wind
As the drop in the air, as the stillness
As the magestic sea
Star-filled chamber of the sky
So your faintest breath
That I no longer have anything else
In the four walls, the ceiling, the floor
To shout for you and my own echo hitting me
To smell of your scent and people to get angry
Because the untested and foreign
People can’t stand and it’s early, do you hear me
It’s still early in this world my love
To speak of you and me.
IV
It’s still early in this world, do you hear me
The monsters have not been tamed, do you hear me
My lost blood and the sharp, do you hear me
Knife
Like a ram racing in the heavens
Breaking the branches of the stars, do you hear me
It’s me, do you hear me
I love you, do you hear me
Holding you and taking you and dressing you
In Ophelia’s white wedding dress, do you hear me
Where are you leaving me, where are you going and who, do you hear me
Is holding your hand over the floods
The huge basins and the volcanic lavas
There will be one day, do you hear me
When they’ll bury us, and after thousands of years
They’ll turn us into precious stones, do you hear me
To crush on them the heartlessness, do you hear me
Of Man
And throw the thousand pieces
In the water one by one, do you hear me
I count my bitter pebbles, do you hear me
And time is a big church, do you hear me
Where once the figures
Of the Saints
Shed real tears, do you hear me
The bells tear in the sky, do you hear me
A deep passage for me to pass
The angels await with candles and eulogies
I’m not going anywhere, do you hear me
Either nobody or both of us together, do you hear me
This flower of the storm and, do you hear me
Of love
We cut it once and for all
And it cannot blossom otherwise, do you hear me
In another earth, in another star, do you hear me
The ground, the air that we touched,
Is no longer the same, do you hear me
And no gardener was happy in other times
From so much winter and north winds, do you hear me
Throw the flower, just us, do you hear me
In the middle of the ocean
By the power of love alone, do you hear me
We created a whole island, do you hear me
With caves and headlands and blossoming cliffs
Listen, listen
Who’s talking to the water and who’s crying -are you listening?
Who’s searching for others, who’s yelling – are you listening?
I’m the one who’s yelling, I’m the one who’s crying, do you hear me
I love you, I love you, do you hear me.
V
VI
VII
