V
Write, write, woman: building begins with this. Chaos on whose solid foundations the forces, not the Force, fall first as the silence of noise.
They are friendly, cheerful, wild, merciful, indifferent, kindly, and bold as long as the rebuilding lasts.
Constructing from the beginning with what we call rubble has been done so many times that the mighty ironic foundations, the cornerstones, refuse to accept even the most skillful raising of intermediate walls which, regardless of their height, obstruct the passage.
And as we sense a swell of air pushing us back, could this be anything else but decline?
*
V
Γράφε, γράφε, γυναίκα: από δω αρχίζει το χτίσιμο. Χάος που στα στέρεα θεμέλιά του οι δυνάμεις, όχι η Δύναμη, πέφτουν πρώτες σιγή θορύβου.
Φιλικές, πρόσχαρες, άγριες, γεμάτες έλεος, αδιάφορες, συμπαθητικές και με τόλμη όσο διαρκεί η ανοικοδόμηση.
Το στήσιμο από την αρχή όσων εμείς αποκαλούμε συντρίμμια, έχει γίνει τόσες φορές, που τα πανίσχυρα και ειρωνικά θεμέλια, οι ακρογωνιαίοι λίθοι, αρνούνται να δεχτούν ακόμη και την πιο επιδέξια ανόρθωση ενδιάμεσων τοιχίων που, ανεξάρτητα από το ύψος τους, είναι εμπόδιο για την διάβαση.
Κι αυτό, αφού νιώθουμε ένα κύμα αέρα να μας ρίχνει προς τα πίσω, είναι δυνατό να μην είναι άλλο από παρακμή;
Veroniki Dalakoura is considered one of the leading Greek poets of her generation. She was born in 1952 in Athens, where she still lives. Dalakoura is also active as a literary critic, reviewing books in the leading Greek newspapers and journals, and has translated a number of Spanish, English-language, and especially classic French writers and poets into Greek, including Rimbaud, Flaubert, Stendhal, Balzac, Baudelaire, and Desnos. Her most recent book of poetry is
Efrosyni, published in 2024 by Koukkida Editions. A vast representative selection of her work has been published in John Taylor’s translation:
Bird Shadows: Selected Poems and Poetic Prose 1967-2020 (Diálogos Books, 2024).
John Taylor is an American writer, poet, critic, and translator who has long lived in France. As a translator from three languages (French, Italian, and Modern Greek), he has brought the work of several European poets into English for the first time. His most recent translations include books by Pascal Quignard, Philippe Jaccottet, José-Flore Tappy, Charline Lambert, Béatrice Douvre, Franca Mancinelli, and Elias Petropoulos. His own volumes of poetry and poetic prose include
Remembrance of Water & Twenty-Five Trees, A Notebook of Clouds & A Notebook of Ridges (which is a “double book” co-authored with the Swiss poet Pierre Chappuis), and
What Comes from the Night.
