A clerk, ATHENS, Bitter oranges

A Clerk

The hours have faded me, found once again
leaning across the thankless table.
(The sun slips through the window in the wall that
faces me, and plays.)

Doubled up, I grope for breath
in the dust of all my papers.
(Life pulses sweetly and its thousand voices rise
from the freedom of the street.)

My eyes and mind are weary and disturbed,
but still I write.
(I know that in the vase beside me are two glowing lilies.
As if they've come up from a tomb.)

Athens

A sweet hour. Athens sprawls like a hetaira
offering herself to April.
Sensuous scents are in the air,
the spirit waits for nothing any more.

The silver of the evening's eyelids
droops, grows heavy up above the houses.
Queenlike the Acropolis puts on
the sunset's crimson like a robe.

The first star rises with a kiss of light.
A zephyr by Ilissus falls in love with
quivering laurels, rosy nymphs.

A sweet hour of delight and love, when
small birds chasing one another raise a wind
that beats upon a column of Olympian Zeus...

In the garden the chrysanthemums were dying...

In the garden the chrysanthemums were dying
like desires when you came. Calmly
you laughed, like little white flowers.
Silent, I made a sweetest song
out of the darkness deep within me
and the petals sing it up above you.

Bitter Oranges

Oh, our little orange tree
all full of flowers
and like a bride dressed
all in white

in her prettiness,
in her wedding dress!
Oh, our little orange tree!
Up on its branches

singing finches
lightly balance.
It drinks the raindrops,
drinks the sunlight,

enjoys its little flowers,
enjoys the May,
plays with the wind,
and smells so sweet.