Exile and Return: Selected Poems 1967-1974

“Later, after sunset, when you return home, any pebble from the beach you place on your table is a statuette - a small Nike or Artemis's dog, and this one, on which a young man stood with wet feet at noon, is a Patroklus with shady shut eyelashes.”(Stones)' I'll go away' - she said - ‘ I'll go away. I can't go on; this wind ... ‘ He threw down the playing cards. Steps were heard on the stairs. The door opened. A scrap of light hit the floor. The woman picked the playing cards off the floor and handed them back to him - · with a gesture like someone returning after years. She then went to change the water of the flowers. But what she'd said buzzed around the room like a fly locked in its buzzing at the beginning of winter.”(Shadows of Movement) “Everything was fine. The clouds in the sky. The baby in the cradle. The window in the washed water glass. The tree in the room. The woman's apron on the chair. The words in the poem. And only a very shiny leaf stood out, and the key through a feather chain.”(Another Holiday)“Opposite the window, the big sunflowers. On the dirt road, dust from the passing horse. She stands there still waiting. Sad. The light reflecting on her face may be from the sunflowers opposite. And suddenly she flings up her arms, she chases the wind, she grabs the rider's straw hat, clutches it to her breast, she goes in and shuts the window.”(“Blowing”) “They killed the cock, the dove, the goat. With the blood they covered their shoulders, their necks, their faces. One turned to the wall and smeared his sex with blood. Then the three women standing in a corner, covered with white veils, uttered small cries as ifbeing slaughtered. The men, as if not hearing, were scribbling on the floor with a piece of chalk uncoiled snakes and ancient arrows. Outside, the drums rolled, their sound reaching the entire neighbourhood.”(Night Ritual”) “Sometimes words come almost by themselves, like leaves of trees -the invisible roots, the soil, the sun, the water have helped,old rotten leaves have also helped. Meanings can easily be attached like spider webs on leaves, or dust and drops of dew sparkling with wavering flashes. Under the leaves, a young girl is disembowelling her nude doll ; a drop falls on her hair; she lifts her head; she sees nothing; only the cold transparency of the drop is dissolved over her body.”(Dissolution) “Roots in the air; - two faces between them; the well was at the bottom of the garden - that's where they had thrown their rings one day; then they looked up, very high up, pretending not to see the old woman shitting in the empty flowerpot as she bit into the big apple.”(Reverse)