Daily Poem: Greece ~ Gunnar Ekelöf
Greece
~ Gunnar Ekelöf
Translated from the Swedish by Leonard Nathan and James Larson
O whitewashed chapel
with icons worn out by kisses!
Your door is shut
only with a spike and a twist of wool
such as one gathers among thistles
and twines around the finger
The oil cruse stands ready
and the greasy lamp, and the plate
for him who has a penny
for him who hs matches
Old and new icons
a gift of mothers
— occasions have not been wanting —
for him who was left in the pass
for him who was taken as a janissary
for him whose eyesight was emptied
for him who was lost with Markos —
cheap prints under glass
Big as a sheepcote:
Your bells the sheepbells
tinkling somewhere up in the mountains
chapel whose lock is wool.
