De Amorgos

My friends perhaps the memory of my forefathers may be a deeper consolation and a more honourable company than a handful of rose-scented water and the intoxication of beauty nothing other than the sleeping rose of the Eurotas. Goodnight then I see crowds of falling stars rocking your dreams but I am holding in my fingers the music for a better day. Travellers from the Indies have more to tell you than the Byzantine chroniclers.

Nikos Gatsos, Amorgos, Sally Purcell (trad.), Anvil Press Poetry, 1998