Poem about life in a city by Katerina Anghelaki Rooke
Katerina Anghelaki Rooke in Chania '95 Photo: Hartmut Schulz
Present Eternity
From my window I observe the traffic -
Cars parked in the void
Or speed up in order
To catch themselves returning.
The world seems indefinable, dim
As if I were blinded by the steam
From some distant cauldron
Where the evil of creation
Is stewing in its own juice.
The infatuation bodies used to provoke -
Where has the infatuation gone?
How can a wounded memory
Count absences?
Has the content of life changed
Or does my person no longer offer
Sufficient future
For life to contain me?
Never before have so many questions
Weighed down my poems
Never before has imagination
Omitted to give me
So many answers.
From now on you’ll find
Hardly any descriptions of nature
In my lines;
This is because
I’m concentrating totally
On trying to imagine the face
Of the one who will promise me
Present eternity
For just one moment.
Katerina Anghelaki Rooke
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