Because I deeply praised

Because I deeply praised and trusted earth
and did not spread my secret wings in fligh
but rooted in the stillness all my mind,
the spring again has risen to my thirst,
the dancing spring of life, my own's joy spring.

Because I never questioned how and when
but plunged my thought into each passing hour
as though its boundless goal lay hidden there,
no matter if I live in calm or storm,
the rounded moment shimmers in my mind,
the fruit falls from the sky, falls deep inside me.

Because I did not say: "here life starts, here ends,"
but "days of rain bring on a richer light
and earthquakes give the world a firmer base,
for a secret is earth's live creative pulse,"
all fleeting things dissolve away like clouds,
great Death itself has now become my kin.

Angelos Sikelianos, Selected Poems, Edmund Keeley e Philip Sherrard (trad.), Denise Harvey, 1996