Poetry is necessary to this modern world in which we are afflicted by fear and disquiet. Poetry has its roots in human breath--and what would we be if our breath were diminished? Poetry is an act of confidence--and who knows whether our unease is not due to a lack of confidence?

--Giorgos Seferis, accepting the 1963 Nobel Prize for Literature

 

Our country is a shut-in place. It is enclosed
By the two black Clashing Rocks. And when we go
On Sundays down to the harbour for a breath of air,
We see, lit by the sunset,
The broken timbers of unfinished journey,
Bodies that know no longer how to love.

I am sorry to have allowed a broad river to pass between my fingers
Without drinking a single drop.
Now I sink into the stone.

I awoke with this marble head between my hands
Which tires my elbows. Where can I put it down?
It was falling into the dream as I rose from the dream
And so our lives grew one, hard now to be separated.

And for the soul
If it is to know itself
It is into a soul
That it must look.

The stranger and the enemy, we have seen him in the mirror.


Give me your hands, give me your hands, give me your hands
I saw in the night
The mountain's pointed peak
I saw the plain afar flooded in moonlight
And no moon to be seen;
I saw, turning my head,
Black stones huddled around
And all my life stretched out like a string,
The beginning and the ending,
The final moment
My hands.