Provincial Spring : Yannis Ritsos

Provincial Spring

Time slows down
the light smoothes out surfaces,
seeps into old closets, drawers, and underneath the beds;
dries the pillow's saliva, 
abrogates the winding of the stairs,
puts words in iambic order.
And now the man
who had only a long, threadbare coat to hide
inglorious scars, the grey hairs,
is obliged to stand naked in the light,
pretending to be the statue of a youth,
over whose marble curls
some famous passerby has thrown a beat-up straw hat
with ribbons and wax cherries from
immemorial summers.
~ Yannis Ritsos

  Translated by Martin McKinsey
source : The Paris Review ( from issue no. 91 spring 1984)
www.theparisreview.org