Image of Boeotia

Here where a desolate glance blows the stones and agave
Here where time's footsteps sound deep
Where great clouds open into golden cherubim
Above the metope of the sky
Tell me where eternity began
Tell me what is the sign you ache for
And what the lot of the helminth

O earth of Boeothia shined by the wind

What has become of the orchestra of naked hands
beneath the palaces
Of the mercy that rose like sacred smoke
Where are the gates with ancient singing birds
And the clang that dawned the terror of peoples
When the sun was entering as triumph
When fate whrithed on the lance of the heart
And fraticidal warblings took fire
What has become of the immortal March libations
Of Greek lines in the water of verdancy

Foreheads and elbows were wounded
Time rolled pink from so much sky
Men advanced
Filled with pain and dream

Acrid image! Enobled by the wind
Of a summer storm that leaves fireblond
Traces on the lines of hills and eagles
In the lines of your palm's destiny

What can you regard and what can you wear
Dressed in the music of glasses and how you proceed
Through heather and through sage
To the arrow's final point

On this red earth of Boeotia
In the desolate marching song of boulders
You'll kindle golden sheaves of fire
You'll uproot the evil fruitfulness of memory
You'll leave a bitter soul in the wild mint!

Odysséas Elytis, The Collected Poems, de In Service of Summer, Jeffrey Carson e Nikos Sarris (trads.), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.