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‘Water into Wine’ (1985), Bishop Stephen Verney’s commentary on Saint John’s Gospel, drawing on his scholarly knowledge of Greek and insights from his experiences with the resistance in Crete
Patrick Comerford
When I was writing about the sundial at Dial House on Bristle Hill in Buckingham on Thursday (29 January 2026), I noted that the Latin inscription had been provided by Bishop Stephen Verney (1919-2009), who died only a year after the dial was installed by the late Anthony Randall (1933-2021).
Bishop Stephen has been described as ‘brave, open-thinking and creative’ with a ‘strong romantic side’. He had been a conscientious objector during World War II, but later became an undercover agent in occupied Crete, working with the Greek resistance. He was as an Oxford classicist and at one time his book Water into Wine (1985) had a profound influence on my understandings of Saint John’s Gospel.
Because of a combination of so many of his interests – classical Greek, early pacifism, the resistance in Crete, the Cross of Nails in Coventry Cathedral and Saint John’s Gospel – as well as his family links with Buckinghamshire, I said at the time I should return to his story in the days or weeks to come
The Gospel reading tomorrow, in those places where it is marked as the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, is John 2: 1-11, the story of the Wedding at Cana and changing water into wine, which inspired that book by Stephen Verney, Water into Wine (1985), and I found myself this week trying to find one of my copies of this book.
Bishop Stephen Verney (1919-2009) has been described as ‘brave, open-thinking and creative’ with a ‘strong romantic side’
Stephen Edmund Verney was the second Bishop of Repton (1977-1985) and when he retired he was an honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford. He was born on 17 April 1919 in Anglesey at his paternal grandmother’s home. His father, Sir Harry Verney (1881-1974), 4th Baronet, of Claydon House, had been the Liberal MP for Buckingham until 1918, held a number of junior ministerial posts and won a DSO in World War I. His maternal grandfather, Victor Alexander Bruce (1849-1917), 9th Earl of Elgin, was Viceroy of India in 1894-1899, and the family was also related to Florence Nightingale.
Stephen Verney spent his childhood at Claydon House, outside Winslow in Buckinghamshire. He went to school at Harrow and then to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1937 to take a classics degree. When World War II broke out, his brothers joined the armed forces. However, Stephen was a conscientious objector and chose to interrupt his university studies to work with the Quaker-run Friends’ Ambulance Unit in in Norway, Finland, Libya and Syria.
But as the war intensified, the Nazi campaign became demonstrably more evil. An incident in Aleppo that led Verney to the agonising decision to leave the Quakers and join the army, and he became a private in the Royal Army Service Corps. This took him to Egypt, and a chance encounter at a party in Cairo with his former headmaster at Harrow, Paul Vellacott (1891-1954), then the director of political warfare in the Middle East with the Political Warfare Executive (PWE).
Aware that Verney was a classicist who could easily master modern Greek, and whose shortness of stature and often scruffy appearance might enable him to pass for a Greek peasant, Vellacott persuaded Verney to join the PWE.
The shore at Preveli on the south coast of Crete … Stephen Verney was landed in Crete on a small boat in 1944
After initial involvement in black propaganda from Cairo, he was commissioned, and in August 1944 – disguised and accompanied by a German Jewish interpreter – he was sent to Crete by night in a small boat. On landing he was met by a Cretan ‘guardian angel’, who recruited a few others to form a cell under Verney’s leadership. With his expertise in classical Greek, it was an easy step to learn modern Greek, and because he was short and naturally dishevelled, it was said he could pass for a Greek peasant.
Verney and his team operated from a base outside Chania – home to the headquarters of the German commander in Crete. With the assistance of a German sergeant major who was in love with a Cretan woman and a Cretan journalist, he printed and distributed Kreta Post, a subtle propaganda paper, in German and Greek, from a cave outside Chania.
His newssheet created a false impression of the size of the resistance movement and that the occupation forces were cracking under the strain. He wrote frequently to the German commander, General Hans-Georg Benthack (1894-1973), telling him Kapitulation was the only real option. A graffiti campaign with the letter ‘K’ was launched, local boys daubed it in on walls, bridges and sentry boxes, and acid was used to etch it on military vehicles.
Verney and his partisans targeted dissatisfied German soldiers who rejected the Nazi regime, others who had fallen in love with Cretan girls, as well as Austrians, Poles and other nationals who had been forced unwillingly into the German army. He negotiated the release of several partisan prisoners by threatening to castrate ‘his’ German prisoners.
On one occasion, Verney was responsible for the mass desertion of Italians who had been fighting with the German army. After indirect contacts with their colonel, a disguised Verney crept into the camp hospital. The meeting was conducted with Verney stretched out on an operating table, the colonel hunched by him as if hearing his confession, while another officer played the part of a surgeon. Verney negotiated the defection of the whole battalion the next morning, and he arranged their evacuation after confiscating all their weapons.
Benthag formally, but secretly, surrendered to one of Verney’s fellow-officers on 8 May, and that evening the small group of British officers in the area invited the German officers who had been hunting them to a party in a café. A jazz band from the German garrison was pressed into service, and during the festivities Verney and the others disclosed their code names and true identities to their astonished guests, including some of the most detested men in the occupying army. All were immediately taken prisoner.
Following the German surrender of Crete, Verney he set up an exhibition of photographs received from recently liberated concentration camps. These were not believed by the still armed German soldiers and a grenade was left under his car.
Verney’s exploits in Crete were recognised after the war with a military MBE. I sometimes wonder whether anyone at the time knew that the man who played such a crucial role in the liberation of Greece was a direct descendant through his mother of Thomas Bruce (1766-1841), 7th Earl of Elgin, who plundered the Parthenon Marbles or Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon and other structures on the Acropolis of Athens almost a century and a half earlier.
The Suda Bay Commonwealth War Cemetery in Crete, near Chania … Stephen Verney’s exploits in Crete were recognised after the war with a military MBE (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Verney returned to Baliol College in 1946 to complete his degree in Oxford and married his first wife, Priscilla (‘Scilla’) Schwerdt, in 1947. He had been drawn by his wartime experience to ordained ministry, and so trained for the priesthood at Westcott House, Cambridge.
He was ordained deacon by Bishop Russell Barry of Southwell at Southwell Minster in 1950, and priest in 1951. He was a curate at Gedling, then the priest in charge of Saint Francis Clifton, Nottingham and Vicar of Leamington Hastings, often working in tough housing estates.
He moved to the Diocese of Coventry as the diocesan missioner in 1958, as Basil Spence’s new cathedral was rising from the ashes of the old cathedral. Cuthbert Bardsley was an enthusiastic new bishop, putting together a team of gifted clergy to develop a vibrant Christian life for the new cathedral. The slogan, ‘A consecrated building requires a consecrated people’, was adopted for a three-year period of preparation, and Verney was entrusted with the project.
Verney enthused people, combining an organising vision with deep spirituality. The Cross of Nails, formed of nails from timber in the ruined cathedral, was passed from parish to parish and made the focus of prayer vigils. By the time Coventry Cathedral was ready for consecration on 26 May 1962, the diocese was in a state of high expectancy and Verney’s leadership was a vital factor.
He was appointed a residentiary canon at Coventry Cathedral in 1964, and by then had become known as an energetic and informal priest within the radical tradition in the Church of England. The gifted team he was a central part of made the Coventry Cathedral a centre of creativity and theological thinking.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the diocese in 1968, he organised an international conference on ‘People and Cities’, celebrating the benefits of urban life and confronting the problems of depersonalisation caused by the scale of modern cities. The participants included planners, philosophers and theologians, and some of the conference’s proposals eventually led to new approaches to urban planning.
In the conference book People and Cities (1969), Verney argued that the future of the Church’s work in cities lay in the formation of small groups, what he called ‘companies of forgiveness’. The book gave rise to the term ‘megalopolis’; it was an early warning about urban conglomeration and exploitation of the natural environment, had a discernable influence on the planners of the new city of Milton Keynes, and was a precursor of the Church of England report Faith in the City (1985).
At the conference, Verney met Fred Blum (1914-1990) who had founded the New Era Centre in 1967. Blum, who had been a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, had become a Quaker and was later ordained an Anglican priest. They became close friends and Verney became a trustee of the New Era Centre.
The Cross of Nails is at the heart of the ministry and outreach of Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Verney became a residentiary canon at Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 1970, and was responsible for Saint George’s House, the centre for discussions and conferences in Windsor Castle, organising conferences along ‘Chatham House’ rules. But he was challenged by the traditions and protocols at Saint George’s and when he tried to introduce contemporary worship and modern music he faced opposition and a sharp clash of personalities.
He was also a confessor and friend for ordination candidates at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, near Oxford, and became a spiritual adviser to the L’Arche community, working with people with learning difficulties. Its founder, Jean Varnier, shared Verney's passion for Saint John’s Gospel.
Scilla’s death in 1974 affected him profoundly. Three years later, he became the Suffragan Bishop of Repton in the Diocese of Derby and he was consecrated bishop by Archbishop Donald Coggan of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey in 1977.
In 1981, Stephen Verney married Sandra Bailey, a divorcee whose husband was still living. He was the first bishop to marry a divorced woman. The controversy that followed became a catalyst for permanent changes in the Church of England’s policies on divorce.
As a bishop, he cared warmly for his clergy, believing the church was too restrictive and cautious in matters of morality. He accepted relationships of all sorts so long as they were not exploitative, and was vocal on issues such as nuclear disarmament, just war, trade unions and capitalism, opposed capital punishment and advocated moving away from prison as punishment towards restorative justice.
He developed a ministry to articulate ecumenical groups disillusioned by their churches because of their priorities for maintain buildings or doctrinal differences, or for ostracising gay people or people seeking divorce or remarriage. He encouraged the distinction between church and faith, arguing that God is liberating, and established the retreat centre at Sutton Courtenay near Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
After eight years as Bishop of Repton, he retired to Blewbury in Oxfordshire in1985. In retirement, he was saddened by the pressures for narrowness and judgmentalism within the Anglican Communion, and used his linguistic skills for a sharp critique of fundamentalism in all forms.
He died on 9 November 2009 and was survived by Sandra and the children of his first marriage; a son from his second marriage predeceased him.
His book Fire in Coventry (1964) tells how the people of Coventry prepared for a new cathedral after World War II. In his posthumously published Snakes And Ladders (2016), he reflects on his whole life, from his childhood, his army service, his ordination, and his time in Coventry to his time as a bishop. His ideas found expression in three other small books – Into the New Age (1976), Water into Wine (1985) and The Dance of Love (1989) – each a combination of romanticism, vision and insight.
‘Fill the jars with water … and they filled them up to the brim’ (John 2: 7) … two large jars or pithoi at the Minoan palace in Knossos, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The Gospel reading tomorrow is Saint John’s account of the wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11), long one of my favourite passages in the Gospels and the reading Charlotte and I chose for the blessing of our weddng in Southwark Cathedral in 2023. This story gave the title to Sttephen Verney’s commentary on Saint John’s Gospel, Water into Wine (1985). His intimate knowledge of Classical Greek served him well as a biblical commentator and the depth of his scholarship made him thoroughly familiar with New Testament Greek, so that he brought out nuances lost so often in English translations.
Water Into Wine is a beautiful book on Saint John’s Gospel, and I have lost many copies over the years, lending them to friends and students, then rummaging again in second-hand bookshops for fresh copies. It was first published in 1985, a year before Steven Verney retired as Bishop of Repton, the year of the miners’ strike and the riots in Handsworth, Brixton and Tottenham, and soon after the Falklands War in 1982 and the intense personal loss of a baby son.
In Water Into Wine, he ties his themes together well, using the Wedding at Cana as the first sign that gives context to the other signs Jesus performed. He draws on the Greek words ἄνω (ano) and κάτω (kato) as ways to understand Saint John’s Gospel. He points out how these two words are different orders, where order is the pattern and the governing principle behind the pattern.
In the order of kato, the ruling principle is me and the pattern is people competing, manipulating and trying to control each other. The order of ano, on the other hand has love as its governing principle and the pattern is one of compassion. The most urgent question confronting each of us, and humanity as a whole, he argues, is how these two orders can be reconciled.
He talks of how ‘the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love’ and of ‘people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.’
The insight into how Saint John’s Gospel that emerges is one of a carefully constructed narrative in which seemingly trivial details, such as the ‘third day’ in tomorrow’s Gospel reading (see John 2: 1), assume a new significance in the events of Holy Week. Verney includes vignettes from his long and varied life, including his time with the resistance in Crete, to illustrate aspects of the gospel.
He writes that ‘we can see in our world order the terrible consequences of our ego-centricity. We have projected it into our institutions, where it has swollen up into a positive force of evil. We are all imprisoned together, in a system of competing nation states, on the edge of a catastrophe which could destroy all life on our planet.’ He was writing in the 1980s but could have been describing today’s populism and nationalism.
The theme of the wedding feast at Cana at the beginning of Saint John’s Gospel points to another third day and to another marriage in eternity. This new age of eternal life begins on the third day after the death of Jesus at the Resurrection ‘and it continues in our experience.’
A new age begins with the crucifixion and resurrection, and Verney locates the new age in the ‘I AM’ sayings of Jesus and what they reveal of his relationship with God. In Jesus, there is a marriage of heaven and earth – a bringing together of ano and kato, up and down, water and wine – and we are called, by Jesus, to become part of that marriage. The marriage of heaven and earth reflects an even more astonishing union that Verney calls ‘The Dance of Love’.
Jesus does only what he sees the Father doing and the Father reveals to Jesus everything that he is doing. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, ‘I and the Father are one.’ The Son cries, ‘Abba! Father!’ and the Father cries ‘my beloved Son’, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.’
There is a relationship of love at the heart of the Godhead where love is constantly shared and exchanged and we are invited into that relationship of love. Becoming part of the Dance of Love through the marriage of heaven and earth is the new age into which we are born again through the death and resurrection of Jesus. To be born again in this way is to be raised from a consciousness that is really death into a quality of life that is eternal.
Stephen Verney's life is recalled in his posthumous ‘Snakes and Ladders’ (2016)
‘There will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven’ (Luke 21: 11) … sunset in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent, and today is the Second Sunday before Advent. Later this morning I hope to be involved in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, including leading the intercessions.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified’ (Luke 21: 9) … the Battle of Britain Monument memorial on the Victoria Embankment in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Luke 21: 5-19 (NRSVA):
5 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, 6 ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’
7 They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?’ 8 And he said, ‘Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and, “The time is near!” Do not go after them.
9 ‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.’ 10 Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
12 ‘But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; 15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated by all because of my name. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.’
‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down’ (Luke 21: 6) … the ruins of a classical temple in Córdoba (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Reflections:
The Gospel readings in the Revised Common Lectionary for the closing Sundays after Pentecost and the Kingdom Season read like readings for Lent and preparation for Holy Week rather than readings for the weeks leading up to Advent. But Advent is a season of preparation for Christ coming among us as God incarnate, as our king, which we mark next Sunday with the Kingship of Christ (the Sunday before Advent, 23 November 2025).
This Gospel reading is a portion of the ‘little apocalypse,’ the last story about Christ teaching in the Temple (see Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13 and Luke 21). He foretells the destruction of the Temple, an episode that took place 40 years later.
It is also known as the ‘Little Apocalypse’ because it includes the use of apocalyptic language, and it includes Christ’s warning to his followers that they will suffer tribulation and persecution before the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God.
In the Gospels according to Saint Matthew and Saint Mark, Christ delivers this discourse to his disciples privately on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Temple. In Saint Luke’s Gospel, he teaches over a period of time in the Temple and stays at night on the Mount of Olives.
In Christ’s time, people worried when the world would end, and wondered what signs would indicate ‘this is about to take place.’
Christ begins to answer these questions by drawing on the Prophets (Micah, Jeremiah, Hosea and Joel) and Jewish apocalyptic literature of the time (such as 2 Esdras). However, he tells them that ‘the end will not follow immediately’ (v. 9), and then diverts to issues that matter then and now: wars, earthquakes, famines, global health, the betrayal and persecution of people who suffer because of their religious beliefs, and how people should respond to these happenings (verse 12-19).
He encourages his followers to endure, for it is not the calamitous events of the future that future but the faith and values we hold on to, no matter what the cost may be.
The Revd Dr Charles Eric Funston is a Facebook friend and retired priest in the Episcopal Church who was the Rector of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio, until 2018. Some years ago, as he was preparing to preach on the ‘little apocalypse’ in today’s reading, he thought, ‘What if Jesus was being sarcastic in that first part?’
This passage is always read as if Christ is predicting wars and earthquakes, and saying those precursors of the end must be preceded by tribulation, persecution and martyrdom. This approach provides a basis for the nonsense that has become known as ‘Rapture Theology.’
But Dr Funston wonders whether ‘we are missing a change of tone of voice in this passage.’ He asks, ‘What if that first part is not a prediction, but a snarky, sarcastic ‘Yeah. Right,’ about his contemporaries’ apocalyptic predictions, which is then followed up with a ‘Get real!’ instruction?’
He points out in the original Greek of this Gospel, the first part of the reading is written in the aorist, while the second part is written in the imperative. Greek playwrights often used the aorist when writing sarcastic dialogue.
It is difficult to convey emotion through the printed page and even more difficult in translations. We often fail to identify sarcasm or irony in Scripture. But they are found throughout the Gospels, including the story of Christ’s dialogue with the Syro-Phoenician woman.
So, Eric Funstone asks, ‘in all seriousness,’ what if Christ is being sarcastic in this reading? ‘What if he is not predicting, but rather ridiculing, notions of catastrophic end-times events and saying, ‘There’s more important stuff to do than worry about that nonsense’?’
Things to worry about today, of course, include wars between nations, earthquakes, climate change, famines, global sickness, poverty, the rising expressions of racism on the streets of Britain and Ireland, the rise of the far-right across Europe, the spiralling descent into authoritarianism in Trump’s America … and how we respond to those events in action that reflects our faith and prayer life.
We have read in recent weeks how Christ, like Isaiah (50: 7) and Ezekiel (21: 1-2) among the prophets, has ‘set his face to go to Jerusalem’ (Luke 9: 51), while his disciples, first in awe, then in shock, follow him on that road to Jerusalem and the Temple. Today’s reading is from the last story about Christ teaching in the Temple.
In between our Gospel readings for the Fourth Sunday before Advent, 2 November (Luke 19: 1-10) and for the Third Sunday before Advent, 9 November (Luke 20: 27-38), the Lectionary readings have skipped past Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when the ‘whole multitude … began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power they had seen, saying ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” ’ (Luke 19: 38).
On his arrival in Jerusalem, Christ weeps, invokes sayings from Jeremiah against a city that ‘did not recognise the time of your visitation from God’ (Luke 19: 41-44), and then faces up to three attempts by the authorities to entrap him, each concluding with Christ silencing his opponents (Luke 20: 1-19; 20: 20-26; and 20: 27-38), the third of was the Gospel reading last Sunday.
The scene has been set in the verses in this chapter that immediately precede today’s reading. Christ is sitting by the Temple Treasury, where he watches the poor widow offer the smallest of coins (verses 1-4).
The scene does not change as he goes on to speak about the Temple, the Nation, and the looming future. But, instead of questioning him about what he has just said about this widow, which might have offered a focus for how the politics of God work, those around him, probably a wider group than just his own disciples, cannot get past the physical presence and appearance of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem, then revered as a sign of God’s presence, even as the dwelling place of God’s sheltering protection for Israel (see Luke 13:34-35).
Christ is no longer facing attacks from others. Instead, he alerts his followers to the hardships they face ahead, beyond the time of his journey. But as he approached Jerusalem, Christ had declared that God’s ‘visitation’ had come with his reign, that the very stones of the Temple would testify against those who rejected him (19: 41-44).
Now he again predicts that all the stones will be thrown down (21: 6), as one scene in the divine drama.
A web of prophetic citations is woven through these verses. These include words and phrases from Jeremiah 4, 7, 14, and 21; Isaiah 19; and Ezekiel 14 and 38. Maybe we could say that Christ, like the prophets before him, was not very original in what he said. There is still the question, though: how faithfully did these prophetic words and warnings of destruction speak to the people of the time, to the people who heard Christ speak?
But Christ also differentiates his teaching from the teaching of the false prophets, who also quoted the ancient words of God. While announcing the coming judgment, Christ cautions against following prophets who claim to know God’s timetable, even invoking Christ’s own name.
The account in this chapter of Christ’s words could be compared with Mark 13, and its intensity of the coming ‘tribulation.’ Or we might go back to Luke 17: 22-37, which also reminds us that Christ’s death is an integral part of God’s timetable: ‘But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation’ (17: 25). Saint Luke’s longer account of Christ’s discourse (21: 5-36) assures his readers they are experiencing not ‘the end’ … but the period of ‘tribulations’ or ‘persecutions’ through which believers will enter the kingdom (see Acts 14: 22).
And so, Saint Luke’s account of Christ’s speech does not provide yet another programme or timetable to predict the working out of God’s plan, down to the last second. The prophets and Christ teach us that the struggles in history and in disturbances in nature are more than accidental. They remind us that God triumphed over chaos in creating the natural world, and yet both human and supra-historical forces are still contending for the earth. Christ’s followers are aware, therefore, that his death and resurrection is God’s ultimate act in a struggle of cosmic proportions. Only the final outcome is sure.
As the Apostle Paul testifies: ‘We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, be we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies’ (Romans 8: 22-23).
The hope to which Christ testifies in this passage, therefore, is no trivial denial of the struggles, the pain and agony of human life, or the catastrophic forces of nature. These are real, and the prophets of old have interpreted such devastations as the context of God’s saving work. Christ joins this chorus, bringing it close to the concrete realities of early Christians. But he says: ‘This will give you an opportunity to testify’ (verse 13) and ‘By your endurance you will gain your souls’ (verse 19).
The ‘opportunity to testify’ does not require Christ’s followers to know every answer to the question: ‘Why do bad things happen to good people.’
Christ is promising that he will give us ‘words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.’ His earlier promise of the Holy Spirit’s wisdom in times of testimony (see Luke 12: 11-12) now becomes his own promise. When he commissions them as ‘my witnesses’ (Acts 1: 8), he assures them of the power and the presence of his Holy Spirit, and the stories in Acts will display the fulfilment of this promise of God’s ‘mouth and wisdom’ (see Acts 4: 13-14; 16: 6-7). And so, even these harsh prophecies in Luke 21 are filled with the confidence of Christ’s enduring presence.
And the ‘endurance’ that ‘will gain your soul’ (verse 19) is also not mere heroic persistence. Saving endurance is a gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
But let me ask some questions:
A problem that continues to dominate parish priorities is the emphasis on buildings rather than people. Are there ‘building blocks’ we need to knock down so we can start again and care for little people like the poor widow who is passed over in this reading?
Is it time to rebuild, to become the kind of temples God really wants?
Should we change church politics and priorities for God’s politics and priorities?
In pursuing God’s vision for the future of the Church and the Kingdom, are we relying on our own knowledge and strengths?
What risks are we willing to take for our core values?
How would you be prophetic and offer hope in the face of the current ‘earthquake’ we are facing with the rise of racism on the streets of Britain and Ireland, or the increasing downward spiral into authoritarianism in Trump’s America?
How do you read the signs of the times when it comes to global events?
Have you a vision for a new heaven and a new earth (see Isaiah 65: 17-25)?
How do you balance concerns for the wider world with those for the widow and her small coin in your parish?
‘The days will come when not one stone will be left upon another’ (Luke 21: 6) … the ruins of the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 16 November 2025):
The theme this week (16 to 22 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘In the Shadow of the Carneddau’ (pp 56-57). This theme is introduced today with Reflections from Bishop Andrew John, who stepped down as Archbishop of Wales and Bishop of Bangor on 27 June:
‘As I write, I’m gazing at the snow-capped peaks of the Carneddau range in North Wales. Carnedd Dafydd and Llewelyn rise sharply to nearly 3,500 feet, offering both beauty and challenge, even if less dramatic than Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon). These vast outcrops represent some of the most stunning terrain in the country. However, climate change is making snow less predictable. Weather patterns are clearly shifting, with human activity being the major driver of these changes.
‘The Psalmist understood the world’s dynamic nature: “He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. But at your rebuke the waters fled” (Psalm 104: 5-7). Could the writer have foreseen a time when the earth would change in ways that harm life?
‘While Christians recognise the earth’s distinction from the Creator, Scriptures show the intimate relationship between God and all creation. The earth praises God through its beauty, energy, and lifegiving force.
‘This understanding makes us resolute to protect the earth’s integrity. As the COP gathering takes place, let us make decisions that reflect our responsibility to sustain life and preserve the environment, using the knowledge we have to shape a healthier future for all.’
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 16 November 2025, II Sunday before Advent) invites us to pray by reading and meditating on Luke 21: 5-19.
The Collect:
Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son was revealed
to destroy the works of the devil
and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life:
grant that we, having this hope,
may purify ourselves even as he is pure;
that when he shall appear in power and great glory
we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom;
where he is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Gracious Lord,
in this holy sacrament
you give substance to our hope:
bring us at the last
to that fullness of life for which we long;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Additional Collect:
Heavenly Lord,
you long for the world’s salvation:
stir us from apathy,
restrain us from excess
and revive in us new hope
that all creation will one day be healed
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified’ (Luke 21: 9) … ‘Humanity’s Contempt for Humanity,’ Peter Walker (2015) in an exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
‘War’ by Richard Klingbeil (2009), original acrylic on canvas, 22 x 28 … along with Titanium White, the artist used only two colours, Prussian Blue and Burnt Sienna
‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed … in fact, the kingdom of God is among you’ (Luke 17: 20-21) … a November setting sun at Burano in the Venetian Lagoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent, and this week began with the Third Sunday before Advent, which was also Remembrance Sunday (9 November 2025). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (13 November) remembers Charles Simeon (1759-1836), Priest, Evangelical Divine.
Before today begins, before having breakfast or that swim, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day’ (Luke 17: 24) … lightning on the Parthenon in Athens (Photograph: courtesy Tripadvisor)
Luke 17: 20-25 (NRSVA):
20 Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; 21 nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.’
22 Then he said to the disciples, ‘The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 They will say to you, “Look there!” or “Look here!” Do not go, do not set off in pursuit. 24 For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 25 But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation.’
The chapel in Magdalen College, Oxford … waiting for the son of God? John Betjeman was an undergraduate, and CS Lewis was his tutor (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s reflection:
The English Poet Laureate John Betjeman loved to tell the story of a Japanese prince who arrived at Magdalen College, Oxford, as an undergraduate 100 years ago in 1925, the same year as Betjeman came up.
The President of Magdalen, Sir Thomas Herbert Warren (1853-1930), was known as a poet too, albeit a bad poet despite being Professor of Poetry at Oxford. He was also an insufferable snob, and Jeremy Paxman says he ‘was perhaps the greatest snob in England.’
When Prince Chichibu arrived at Magdalen in 1925, Warren hoped he would soon be followed by his elder brother, the future Emperor Hirohito. The prince told Warren he was a direct descendant of the sun goddess Ametarasu, and let him know: ‘At home I am called the son of God.’
Warren took a deep breath, coughed and put the prince in his place: ‘You will find, your highness, that we have the sons of many famous fathers here.’
The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 17: 20-25) is one of the stories about preparing for the kingdom of God and the arrival of the Son of God on earth, not only as the incarnate Christ Child at Christmas in nativity story or in a decorative crib, but also as Christ the King.
As we prepare for the Feast of Christ the King in ten days’ time (Sunday 24 November) and for Advent, we should expect many of our readings to have apocalyptic themes, looking forward to that Coming of Christ the King at his second coming.
The apocalyptic images in today’s reading anticipate some of these themes. But, perhaps surprisingly, today’s reading cautions us against looking for too many portents or for inappropriate signs, telling us instead to live in the real world: ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed … For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you’ (Luke 17: 20-21).
But, as we prepare for the coming of Christ, are we trapped?
Are we trapped in the commercialism of Christmas?
There are 12 days of Christmas. But not one of them is in November. Yet for many weeks now, we have been inundated with Christmas catalogues and advertising, and invitations to book Christmas dinners or book tickets for Christmas shows. Already, here in Stony Stratford, the Christmas went up in the High Street on Sunday morning and many of the shops are displaying bright Christmas decorations.
Does the decoration of our shops, even of our churches, lead our eyes to the coming Christ or away from him?
To return to John Betjeman: he spent time in Dublin during World War II as the British press attaché, and was an active parishioner in Saint John’s, Clondalkin. In a lecture to Church of Ireland clergy in 1943, he said the ‘fabric of the church is very much concerned with worship. The decoration of a church can lead the eye to God or away from him.’
Betjeman’s poems are often humorous, with a wry, comic verse often marked by satire. He is one of the most significant literary figures of our time and was a practising Anglican, and his beliefs and piety inform many of his poems.
It is appropriate then, this morning, to re-read Betjeman’s poem ‘Christmas.’ In the first few verses, he describes the frivolous ways we prepare for Christmas:
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.
The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
‘The church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.
Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.
And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.
And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.
And then, In the last three stanzas of this poem, Betjeman proclaims the wonder of Christ’s birth in the form of a question: ‘And is it true …?’
And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
‘God was man in Palestine / And lives today in Bread and Wine’ (John Betjeman) … communion vessels at the Eucharist (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 13 November 2025):
The theme this week (9 to 15 November) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Hope for the Future’ (pp 54-55). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Laura D’Henin-Ivers, Chief Executive Officer at Hope for the Future, to mark COP30 in Brazil this week.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 13 November 2025) invites us to pray:
Holy Spirit, stir your Church to be a prophetic voice in the climate crisis. May we embrace our calling to challenge injustice, care for creation, and lead by example in living sustainably. Strengthen our faith as we work for a just and flourishing world.
The Collect:
Eternal God,
who raised up Charles Simeon
to preach the good news of Jesus Christ
and inspire your people in service and mission:
grant that we with all your Church may worship the Saviour,
turn in sorrow from our sins and walk in the way of holiness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant Charles Simeon revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.
‘For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day’ (Luke 17: 24) … fading lights at Punta Sabbioni, where the Venetian Lagoon meets the Adriatic Sea (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The Full Moon over the Parthenon and the Acropolis in Athens earlier this month
Patrick Comerford
I was pondering earlier last week on how my collection of Greek CDs and music, which had expanded over the years, has gone to other – and, hopefully, better – homes, and how, now that I am without a CD player, I find I am listening to Greek music and Greek songs online on a variety of platforms, still trying to sing along to lyrics often adapted from Greek poetry but that sadly suffer from bad translations into English. .
It was not merely a wistful desire to recreate the sounds and sentiments of regular and constant return visits to Crete; I also imagined in my heart that listening to and trying to sing along with the words of Greek songs and poetry would help improve my fluency and pronunciation as I continued to try (to little avail, I now admit) to work on my spoken Greek.
Over the years, I continued to accumulate more CDs to add to that collection. But as time passed, I found I no longer had a CD player, and certainly would not know where to find a tape deck. In time, my love of Greek music and poetry led to Professor Panos Karagiorgos inviting me to write the foreword to his Ελληνικα Δημοτικα Τραγουδια, Greek Folk Songs, published in Thessaloniki last year.
Those frail efforts to give a kick-start to my tawdry efforts to learn spoken and idiomatic Greek also included trying to read and listen to modern Greek poetry. But my volumes of Greek poetry seems to have gone in the same direction of my collection of Greem music. So I was pleased in recent days to come across once again one of my favourite modern Greek poems, Moonlight Sonata () by Yannis Ritsos.
Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990), the poet of the Greek left, is considered one of the four greatest Greek poets of the 20th century, alongside Kostis Palamas (1859-1943), Giorgos Seferis (1900-1971) and Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996). The French poet Louis Aragon once described him as ‘the greatest poet of our age.”
Ritsos published 120 collections of poems, nine volumes of prose, and several translations of Russian and Eastern European poetry. Many of his poems have been set to music by the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis. His poetry was banned at times in Greece for its left-wing politics and sympathies. His great works include Tractor (1934), Pyramids (1935), Epitaphios (1936) and Vigil (1941/1953). Although his poems are marked by their strong political content, one of the exceptions is his Moonlight Sonata:
I know that each one of us travels to love alone,
alone to faith and to death.
I know it. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t help.
Let me come with you.
Yannis Ritsos was born in Greece in the old walled town of Monemvassia on 1 May 1909, the last child in a noble, land-owning family. During his youth his family was devastated by economic ruin after his father went bankrupt, the unexpected early death from tuberculosis of both his mother and his eldest brother, and his father’s lengthy spells in a psychiatric unit. Yannis Ritsos spent four years between 1927 and 1931 in a sanatorium with tuberculosis. The experience of these tragic events marks his work and shaped him as a poet and as a revolutionary.
Ritsos lived most of his life in Athens. In his early 20s, he became involved in left-wing politics, and he spent many years in detention, in prison and in internal exile.
He published his first collection of poetry, Tractors, in 1934, follwed by Pyramids in 1935. These two collections achieved a fragile balance between faith in the future and personal despair. His epic poem Epitaphios (1936) uses the shape of the traditional popular poetry to express in clear and simple language its moving message of fraternity, solidarity and hope in the future. Later, the setting of Epitaphios by Mikis Theodorakis in 1960 sparked a cultural revolution in Greece.
The Metaxas regime tried to silence Ritsos from August 1936, and his Epitaphios was burnt publicly. But he continued writing. The Song of my Sister (1937), Symphony of the Spring (1938), and The Lady of the Vineyards (1945-1947), inspired the Seventh Symphony by Theodorakis (1983-1984), also known as Symphony of the Spring.
After World War II, during the Greek civil war, Ritsos fought against the fascists, and spent four years in various detention camps, including Lémnos, Ayios Ephstratios and Makronissos. Despite this, he published his collection Vigil (1941-1953), and a long poetic chronicle of that terrifying decade: Districts of the World (1949-1951), the basis of another later composition of Theodorakis.
Romiossini (Greek-ness), first published only in 1954 and set into music by Theodorakis in 1966, is a proud and shattering hymn to the glory of a once-humiliated Greece and its freed people.
His mature works include The Moonlight Sonata (1956), The Stranger (1958), The Old Women and the Sea (1958), The Dead House (1959-1962) and a set of monologues inspired by mythology and the ancient tragedies: Orestes (1962-1966) and Philoctetes (1963-1965).
Between 1967 and 1971, the military junta deported Ritsos to Yaros and Leros before sending him to Samos. But he continued writing: Persephone (1965-1970), Agamemnon (1966-1970), Ismene (1966-1971), Ajax (1967-1969) and Chrysothemis (1967-1970) – both written during his internal island exile – Helena (1970-1972), The Return of Iphigenia (1971-1972) and Phaedra (1974-1975).
Ritsos also wrote also several short poems that reflected his people’s living nightmare. In the 1980s, he also wrote novels. Nine books are united under the title of The Iconostasis of the Anonymous Saints (1983-1985), which has been translated in three volumes by my good friend, Amy Mims (Athens: Kedros, 1996-2001), who has also published a critical biography of Ritsos in Greece.
The poems in his last book, Late in the night (1987-1989), are filled with sadness and the conscience of losses, but preserve a sense of hope and creativity.
During the last decades of his life, he was active in the peace movement. He received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1977 and the International Peace Prize in 1979. In 1986, he was a founder with Theodorakis of the Greek-Turkish Friendship Society. Shortly before his death, he declared: ‘Man’s inclination is towards well-being, happiness and peace. There must be peace throughout the world because you cannot yourself be at peace when your brother is being wronged.’
Ritsos was unsuccessfully proposed nine times for the Nobel Prize for Literature. When he won the Lenin Peace Prize, he declared: ‘This prize – it’s more important for me than the Nobel.’
Despite his often tragic view of life, Ritsos was not pessimistic: ‘I love life, and especially I love beauty.’ He died in Athens 35 years ago on 11 November 1990.
The Acropolis under the moonlight on a summer night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on image for full-screen view)
Moonlight Sonata: the setting
After its publication almost 70 years ago in 1956, Moonlight Sonata won the National Poetry Prize of Greece. It was soon translated into French by Aragon, who first introduced Ritsos to literary Europe. It has been translated into English by Peter Green and Beverley Ardsley of Austin, Texas (1993), and by Marjorie Chambers of Queen’s University Belfast (2001), and is included in many anthologies.
The scene is set in a dark, decaying, haunted family mansion in the Plaka in Athens, full of memories, old furniture and collected bric-a-brac, its plaster flaking off and its floorboards lifting and cracking. Because this crumbling house appears to be close to the steps of the Church of Aghios Nikólaos Rangava, I imagine the crumbling mansion described by Ritsos is similar to the crumbling mansion that was once home to the great Irish-born Philhellene, Sir Richard Church. The former glory of this house and her failure to maintain it have become major burdens for the Woman in the Black, who is the narrator of this poem.
The Woman in Black might be an early version of Ismene or Elektra. She lives with a gnawing loneliness and is losing her battle against age and death. Yet in her acute erotic awareness of the young male visitor in the house, she prefigures the more intense eroticism of Phaedra. Trapped in her house of memories, she longs to escape the cloying house and her past and to embrace some real human connections, to embrace the present and the future. Constantly her refrain ends sadly with the persistent line: Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου … ‘Let me come with you.’
But can there ever be an escape from the past?
Η Σονάτα Του Σεληνόφωτος (Γιάννης Ρίτσος) - Moonlight Sonata (Yannis Ritsos)
«Ανοιξιάτικο βράδυ. Μεγάλο δωμάτιο παλιού σπιτιού. Μια ηλικιωμένη γυναίκα, ντυμένη στα μαύρα, μιλάει σ' έναν νέο. Δεν έχουν ανάψει φως. Απ' τα δύο παράθυρα μπαίνει ένα αμείλικτο φεγγαρόφωτο. Ξέχασα να πω ότι η Γυναίκα με τα Μαύρα έχει εκδώσει δύο-τρεις ενδιαφέρουσες ποιητικές συλλογές θρησκευτικής πνοής. Λοιπόν, η Γυναίκα με τα Μαύρα μιλάει στον Νέο:
Άφησέ με να έρθω μαζί σου. Τι φεγγάρι απόψε!
Είναι καλό το φεγγάρι, – δε θα φαίνεται
που άσπρισαν τα μαλλιά μου. Το φεγγάρι
θα κάνει πάλι χρυσά τα μαλλιά μου. Δε θα καταλάβεις.
Άφησέ με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Όταν έχει φεγγάρι μεγαλώνουν οι σκιές μες στο σπίτι,
αόρατα χέρια τραβούν τις κουρτίνες,
ένα δάχτυλο αχνό γράφει στη σκόνη του πιάνου
λησμονημένα λόγια δε θέλω να τ ακούσω. Σώπα.
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου
λίγο πιο κάτου, ως την μάντρα του τουβλάδικου,
ως εκεί που στρίβει ο δρόμος και φαίνεται
η πολιτεία τσιμεντένια κι αέρινη, ασβεστωμένη με φεγγαρόφωτο,
τόσο αδιάφορη κι άυλη
τόσο θετική σαν μεταφυσική
που μπορείς επιτέλους να πιστέψεις πως υπάρχεις και δεν υπάρχεις
πως ποτέ δεν υπήρξες, δεν υπήρξε ο χρόνος κι η φθορά του.
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Θα καθίσουμε λίγο στο πεζούλι, πάνω στο ύψωμα,
κι όπως θα μας φυσάει ο ανοιξιάτικος αέρας
μπορεί να φανταστούμε κιόλας πως θα πετάξουμε,
γιατί, πολλές φορές, και τώρα ακόμη, ακούω τον θόρυβο του φουστανιού μου
σαν τον θόρυβο δύο δυνατών φτερών που ανοιγοκλείνουν,
κι όταν κλείνεσαι μέσα σ αυτόν τον ήχο του πετάγματος
νιώθεις κρουστό το λαιμό σου, τα πλευρά σου, τη σάρκα σου,
κι έτσι σφιγμένος μες στους μυώνες του γαλάζιου αγέρα,
μέσα στα ρωμαλέα νεύρα του ύψους,
δεν έχει σημασία αν φεύγεις ή αν γυρίζεις
κι ούτε έχει σημασία που άσπρισαν τα μαλλιά μου,
(δεν είναι τούτο η λύπη μου η λύπη μου
είναι που δεν ασπρίζει κι η καρδιά μου).
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Το ξέρω πως καθένας μοναχός πορεύεται στον έρωτα,
μοναχός στη δόξα και στο θάνατο.
Το ξέρω. Το δοκίμασα. Δεν ωφελεί.
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Τούτο το σπίτι στοίχειωσε, με διώχνει –
θέλω να πω έχει παλιώσει πολύ, τα καρφιά ξεκολλάνε,
τα κάδρα ρίχνονται σα να βουτάνε στο κενό,
οι σουβάδες πέφτουν αθόρυβα
όπως πέφτει το καπέλο του πεθαμένου
απ' την κρεμάστρα στο σκοτεινό διάδρομο
όπως πέφτει το μάλλινο τριμμένο γάντι της σιωπής απ' τα γόνατά της
ή όπως πέφτει μιά λουρίδα φεγγάρι στην παλιά, ξεκοιλιασμένη πολυθρόνα.
Κάποτε υπήρξε νέα κι αυτή, – όχι η φωτογραφία που κοιτάς με τόση δυσπιστία –
λέω για την πολυθρόνα, πολύ αναπαυτική, μπορούσες ώρες ολόκληρες να κάθεσαι
και με κλεισμένα μάτια να ονειρεύεσαι ό,τι τύχει
– μιάν αμμουδιά στρωτή, νοτισμένη, στιλβωμένη από φεγγάρι,
πιο στιλβωμένη απ' τα παλιά λουστρίνια μου που κάθε μήνα τα δίνω
στο στιλβωτήριο της γωνίας,
ή ένα πανί ψαρόβαρκας που χάνεται στο βάθος λικνισμένο απ' την ίδια του ανάσα,
τριγωνικό πανί σα μαντίλι διπλωμένο λοξά μόνο στα δύο
σα να μην είχε τίποτα να κλείσει ή να κρατήσει
ή ν' ανεμίσει διάπλατο σε αποχαιρετισμό.
Πάντα μου είχα μανία με τα μαντίλια,
όχι για να κρατήσω τίποτα δεμένο,
τίποτα σπόρους λουλουδιών ή χαμομήλι μαζεμένο στους αγρούς με το λιόγερμα
ή να το δέσω τέσσερις κόμπους σαν το αντικρινό γιαπί
ή να σκουπίζω τα μάτια μου, – διατήρησα καλή την όρασή μου,
ποτέ μου δεν φόρεσα γυαλιά. Μιά απλή ιδιοτροπία τα μαντίλια …
Τώρα τα διπλώνω στα τέσσερα, στα οχτώ, στα δεκάξι
ν' απασχολώ τα δάχτυλά μου.
Και τώρα θυμήθηκα
πως έτσι μετρούσα τη μουσική σαν πήγαινα στο Ωδείο
με μπλε ποδιά κι άσπρο γιακά, με δύο ξανθές πλεξούδες
– 8, 16, 32, 64, –
κρατημένη απ' το χέρι μιας μικρής φίλης μου ροδακινιάς όλο φως και ροζ λουλούδια,
(συγχώρεσέ μου αυτά τα λόγια κακή συνήθεια) – 32, 64, – κι οι δικοί μου στήριζαν
μεγάλες ελπίδες στο μουσικό μου τάλαντο. Λοιπόν, σου λεγα για την πολυθρόνα –
ξεκοιλιασμένη – φαίνονται οι σκουριασμένες σούστες, τα άχερα –
έλεγα να την πάω δίπλα στο επιπλοποιείο,
μα που καιρός και λεφτά και διάθεση – τι να πρωτοδιορθώσεις ; –
έλεγα να ρίξω ένα σεντόνι πάνω της, – φοβήθηκα
τ' άσπρο σεντόνι σε τέτοιο φεγγαρόφωτο. Εδώ κάθισαν
άνθρωποι που ονειρεύτηκαν μεγάλα όνειρα, όπως κι εσύ κι όπως κι εγώ άλλωστε,
και τώρα ξεκουράζονται κάτω απ' το χώμα δίχως να ενοχλούνται απ' τη βροχή ή το φεγγάρι.
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Θα σταθούμε λιγάκι στην κορφή της μαρμάρινης σκάλας του Αϊ-Νικόλα,
ύστερα εσύ θα κατηφορίσεις κι εγώ θα γυρίσω πίσω
έχοντας στ' αριστερό πλευρό μου τη ζέστα απ' το τυχαίο άγγιγμα του σακακιού σου
κι ακόμη μερικά τετράγωνα φώτα από μικρά συνοικιακά παράθυρα
κι αυτή την πάλλευκη άχνα απ' το φεγγάρι που 'ναι σα μια μεγάλη συνοδεία
ασημένιων κύκνων –
και δε φοβάμαι αυτή την έκφραση, γιατί εγώ
πολλές ανοιξιάτικες νύχτες συνομίλησα άλλοτε με το Θεό που μου εμφανίστηκε
ντυμένος την αχλύ και την δόξα ενός τέτοιου σεληνόφωτος,
και πολλούς νέους, πιο ωραίους κι από σένα ακόμη, του εθυσίασα,
έτσι λευκή κι απρόσιτη ν' ατμίζομαι μες στη λευκή μου φλόγα, στη λευκότητα του σεληνόφωτος,
πυρπολημένη απ' τ' αδηφάγα μάτια των αντρών κι απ' τη δισταχτικήν έκσταση των εφήβων,
πολιορκημένη από εξαίσια, ηλιοκαμένα σώματα, άλκιμα μέλη γυμνασμένα στο κολύμπι, στο κουπί, στο στίβο, στο ποδόσφαιρο
(που έκανα πως δεν τα 'βλεπα)
– ξέρεις, καμιά φορά, θαυμάζοντας, ξεχνάς, ό, τι θαυμάζεις,
σου φτάνει ο θαυμασμός σου, –
θε μου, τι μάτια πάναστρα, κι ανυψωνόμουν σε μιαν αποθέωση αρνημένων άστρων
γιατί, έτσι πολιορκημένη απ' έξω κι από μέσα,
άλλος δρόμος δε μου 'μενε παρά μονάχα προς τα πάνω ή προς τα κάτω.
– Όχι, δε φτάνει.
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Το ξέρω η ώρα είναι πια περασμένη. Άφησέ με,
γιατί τόσα χρόνια, μέρες και νύχτες και πορφυρά μεσημέρια, έμεινα μόνη,
ανένδοτη, μόνη και πάναγνη,
ακόμη στη συζυγική μου κλίνη πάναγνη και μόνη,
γράφοντας ένδοξους στίχους στα γόνατα του Θεού,
στίχους που, σε διαβεβαιώ, θα μένουνε σα λαξευμένοι σε άμεμπτο μάρμαρο
πέρα απ' τη ζωή μου και τη ζωή σου, πέρα πολύ. Δε φτάνει.
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Τούτο το σπίτι δε με σηκώνει πια.
Δεν αντέχω να το σηκώνω στη ράχη μου.
Πρέπει πάντα να προσέχεις, να προσέχεις,
να στεριώνεις τον τοίχο με το μεγάλο μπουφέ
να στεριώνεις τον μπουφέ με το πανάρχαιο σκαλιστό τραπέζι
να στεριώνεις το τραπέζι με τις καρέκλες
να στεριώνεις τις καρέκλες με τα χέρια σου
να βάζεις τον ώμο σου κάτω απ' το δοκάρι που κρέμασε.
Και το πιάνο, σα μαύρο φέρετρο κλεισμένο. Δε τολμάς να τ' ανοίξεις.
Όλο να προσέχεις, να προσέχεις, μην πέσουν, μην πέσεις. Δεν αντέχω.
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Τούτο το σπίτι, παρ όλους τους νεκρούς του, δεν εννοεί να πεθάνει.
Επιμένει να ζει με τους νεκρούς του
να ζει απ' τους νεκρούς του
να ζει απ' τη βεβαιότητα του θανάτου του
και να νοικοκυρεύει ακόμη τους νεκρούς του σ' ετοιμόρροπα κρεββάτια και ράφια.
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Εδώ, όσο σιγά κι αν περπατήσω μες στην άχνα της βραδιάς,
είτε με τις παντούφλες, είτε ξυπόλυτη,
κάτι θα τρίξει, – ένα τζάμι ραγίζει ή κάποιος καθρέφτης,
κάποια βήματα ακούγονται, – δεν είναι δικά μου.
Έξω, στο δρόμο μπορεί να μην ακούγονται τούτα τα βήματα, –
η μεταμέλεια, λένε, φοράει ξυλοπάπουτσα, –
κι αν κάνεις να κοιτάξεις σ' αυτόν ή τον άλλον καθρέφτη,
πίσω απ' την σκόνη και τις ραγισματιές,
διακρίνεις πιο θαμπό και πιο τεμαχισμένο το πρόσωπό σου,
το πρόσωπο σου που άλλο δε ζήτησες στη ζωή παρά να το κρατήσεις
καθάριο κι αδιαίρετο.
Τα χείλη του ποτηριού γυαλίζουν στο φεγγαρόφωτο
σαν κυκλικό ξυράφι – πώς να το φέρω στα χείλη μου;
όσο κι αν διψώ, – πως να το φέρω; – Βλέπεις;
έχω ακόμη διάθεση για παρομοιώσεις, – αυτό μου απόμεινε,
αυτό με βεβαιώνει ακόμη πως δεν λείπω.
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Φορές-φορές, την ώρα που βραδιάζει, έχω την αίσθηση
πως έξω απ' τα παράθυρα περνάει ο αρκουδιάρης
με τη γριά βαρειά του αρκούδα
με το μαλλί της όλο αγκάθια και τριβόλια
σηκώνοντας σκόνη στο συνοικιακό δρόμο
ένα ερημικό σύννεφο σκόνη που θυμιάζει το σούρουπο
και τα παιδιά έχουν γυρίσει σπίτια τους για το δείπνο και δεν τ' αφή – νουν πιαν να βγουν έξω
μ' όλο που πίσω απ' τους τοίχους μαντεύουν το περπάτημα της γριάς αρκούδας –
κι η αρκούδα κουρασμένη πορεύεται μες στη σοφία της μοναξιάς της,
μην ξέροντας για πού και γιατί –
έχει βαρύνει, δεν μπορεί πια να χορεύει στα πισινά της πόδια
δεν μπορεί να φοράει τη δαντελένια σκουφίτσα της να διασκεδάζει τα παιδιά,
τους αργόσχολους, τους απαιτητικούς,
και το μόνο που θέλει είναι να πλαγιάσει στο χώμα
αφήνοντας να την πατάνε στην κοιλιά,
παίζοντας έτσι το τελευταίο παιχνίδι της,
δείχνοντας την τρομερή της δύναμη για παραίτηση,
την ανυπακοή της στα συμφέροντα των άλλων, στους κρίκους των χειλιών της, στην ανάγκη των δοντιών της,
την ανυπακοή της στον πόνο και στη ζωή
με τη σίγουρη συμμαχία του θανάτου – έστω κι ενός αργού θανάτου –
την τελική της ανυπακοή στο θάνατο με τη συνέχεια και τη γνώση της ζωής
που ανηφοράει με γνώση και με πράξη πάνω απ τη σκλαβιά της.
Μα ποιος μπορεί να παίξει ως το τέλος αυτό το παιχνίδι;
Κι η αρκούδα σηκώνεται πάλι και πορεύεται
υπακούοντας στο λουρί της, στους κρίκους της, στα δόντια της,
χαμογελώντας με τα σκισμένα χείλη της στις πενταροδεκάρες που της
ρίχνουνε τα ωραία κι ανυποψίαστα παιδιά
(ωραία ακριβώς γιατί είναι ανυποψίαστα)
και λέγοντας ευχαριστώ. Γιατί οι αρκούδες που γεράσανε
το μόνο που έμαθαν να λένε είναι: ευχαριστώ, ευχαριστώ.
Άφησέ με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Τούτο το σπίτι με πνίγει. Μάλιστα η κουζίνα
είναι σαν το βυθό της θάλασσας. Τα μπρίκια κρεμασμένα γυαλίζουν
σα στρογγυλά, μεγάλα μάτια απίθανων ψαριών,
τα πιάτα σαλεύουν αργά σαν τις μέδουσες,
φύκια κι όστρακα πιάνονται στα μαλλιά μου – δεν μπορώ να τα ξεκολλήσω ύστερα,
δεν μπορώ ν' ανέβω πάλι στην επιφάνεια –
ο δίσκος μου πέφτει απ' τα χέρια άηχος, – σωριάζομαι
και βλέπω τις φυσαλίδες απ' την ανάσα μου ν' ανεβαίνουν, ν' ανεβαίνουν
και προσπαθώ να διασκεδάσω κοιτάζοντές τες
κι αναρωτιέμαι τι θα λέει αν κάποιος βρίσκεται από πάνω και βλέπει αυτές τις φυσαλίδες,
τάχα πως πνίγεται κάποιος ή πως ένας δύτης ανιχνεύει τους βυθούς;
Κι αλήθεια δεν είναι λίγες οι φορές που ανακαλύπτω εκεί, στο βάθος του πνιγμού,
κοράλλια και μαργαριτάρια και θυσαυρούς ναυαγισμένων πλοίων,
απρόοπτες συναντήσεις, και χτεσινά και σημερινά μελλούμενα,
μιαν επαλήθευση σχεδόν αιωνιότητας,
κάποιο ξανάσαμα, κάποιο χαμόγελο αθανασίας, όπως λένε,
μιαν ευτυχία, μια μέθη, κι ενθουσιασμόν ακόμη,
κοράλλια και μαργαριτάρια και ζαφείρια,
μονάχα που δεν ξέρω να τα δώσω – όχι, τα δίνω,
μονάχα που δεν ξέρω αν μπορούν να τα πάρουν – πάντως εγώ τα δίνω.
Άφησέ με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Μια στιγμή, να πάρω τη ζακέτα μου.
Τούτο τον άστατο καιρό, όσο να 'ναι, πρέπει να φυλαγόμαστε.
Έχει υγρασία τα βράδια, και το φεγγάρι
δε σου φαίνεται, αλήθεια, πως επιτείνει την ψύχρα;
Άσενα σου κουμπώσω το πουκάμισο – τι δυνατό το στήθος σου,
– τι δυνατό φεγγάρι, – η πολυθρόνα, λέω κι όταν σηκώνω το φλιτζάνι απ' το τραπέζι
μένει από κάτω μιά τρύπα σιωπή, βάζω αμέσως την παλάμη μου επάνω
να μην κοιτάξω μέσα, – αφήνω πάλι το φλιτζάνι στη θέση του,
και το φεγγάρι μια τρύπα στο κρανίο του κόσμου – μην κοιτάξεις μέσα,
έχει μια δύναμη μαγνητική που σε τραβάει – μην κοιτάξεις, μην κοιτάχτε,
ακούστε με που σας μιλάω – θα πέσετε μέσα. Τούτος ο ίλιγγος ωραίος, ανάλαφρος θα πέσεις, –
ένα μαρμάρινο πηγάδι το φεγγάρι,
ίσκιοι σαλεύουν και βουβά φτερά, μυστιριακές φωνές – δεν τις ακούτε;
Βαθύ-βαθύ το πέσιμο,
βαθύ-βαθύ το ανέβασμα,
το αέρινο άγαλμα κρουστό μες στ' ανοιχτά φτερά του,
βαθειά-βαθειά η αμείλικτη ευεργεσία της σιωπής, –
τρέμουσες φωταψίες της άλλης όχθης, όπως ταλαντεύεσαι μες στο ίδιο σου το κύμα,
ανάσα ωκεανού. Ωραίος, ανάλαφρος
ο ίλιγγος τούτος, – πρόσεξε, θα πέσεις. Μην κοιτάς εμένα,
εμένα η θέση μου είναι το ταλάντευμα – ο εξαίσιος ίλιγγος. Έτσι κάθε απόβραδο
έχω λιγάκι πονοκέφαλο, κάτι ζαλάδες …
Συχνά πετάγομαι στο φαρμακείο απέναντι για καμμιάν ασπιρίνη,
άλλοτε πάλι βαριέμαι και μένω με τον πονοκέφαλό μου
ν' ακούω μες στους τοίχους τον κούφιο θόρυβο που κάνουν οι σωλήνες του νερού,
ή ψήνω έναν καφέ, και, πάντα αφηρημένη,
ξεχνιέμαι κ ετοιμάζω – δυο ποιος να τον πιει τον άλλον; –
αστείο αλήθεια, τον αφήνω στο περβάζι να κρυώνει
ή κάποτε πίνω και τον δεύτερο, κοιτάζοντας απ' το παράθυρο τον πράσινο γλόμπο του φαρμακείου
σαν το πράσινο φως ενός αθόρυβου τραίνου που έρχεται να με πάρει
με τα μαντίλια μου, τα στραβοπατημένα μου παπούτσια, τη μαύρη τσάντα μου, τα ποιήματα μου,
χωρίς καθόλου βαλίτσες – τι να τις κάνεις;
Άφησέ με να έρθω μαζί σου …
Α, φεύγεις; Καληνύχτα. Όχι, δε θα έρθω. Καληνύχτα.
Εγώ θα βγω σε λίγο. Ευχαριστώ. Γιατί, επιτέλους, πρέπει
να βγω απ' αυτό το τσακισμένο σπίτι.
Πρέπει να δω λιγάκι πολιτεία, – όχι, όχι το φεγγάρι –
την πολιτεία με τα ροζιασμένα χέρια της, την πολιτεία του μεροκάματου,
την πολιτεία που ορκίζεται στο ψωμί και στη γροθιά της
την πολιτεία που μας αντέχει στη ράχη της
με τις μικρότητες μας, τις κακίες, τις έχτρες μας,
με τις φιλοδοξίες, την άγνοιά μας και τα γερατειά μας, –
ν' ακούσω τα μεγάλα βήματά της πολιτείας,
να μην ακούω πια τα βήματα σου
μήτε τα βήματα του Θεού, μήτε και τα δικά μου βήματα. Καληνύχτα …
(Το δωμάτιο σκοτεινιάζει. Φαίνεται πως κάποιο σύννεφο θα έκρυψε το φεγγάρι. Μονομιάς, σαν κάποιο χέρι να δυνάμωσε το ραδιόφωνο του γειτονικού μπαρ, ακούστηκε μια πολύ γνωστή μουσική φράση. Και τότε κατάλαβα πως όλη τούτη τη σκηνή τη συνόδευε χαμηλόφωνα η “Σονάτα του Σεληνόφωτος,” μόνο το πρώτο μέρος. Ο νέος θα κατηφορίζει τώρα μ' ένα ειρωνικό κι ίσως συμπονετικό χαμόγελο στα καλογραμμένα χείλη του και μ' ένα συναίσθημα απαιλευθέρωσης. Όταν θα φτάσει ακριβώς στον Αη-Νικόλα, πριν κατέβει τη μαρμάρινη σκάλα, θα γελάσει, - ένα γέλιο δυνατό, ασυγκράτητο. Το γέλιο του δε θ' ακουστεί καθόλου ανάρμοστα κάτω απ' το φεγγάρι. Ίσως το μόνο ανάρμοστο να είναι το ότι δεν είναι καθόλου ανάρμοστο. Σε λίγο ο Νέος θα σωπάσει, θα σοβαρευτεί και θα πει: “Η παρακμή μιάς εποχής.” Έτσι, ολότελα ήσυχος πια, θα ξεκουμπώσει πάλι το πουκάμισό του και θα τραβήξει το δρόμο του. Όσο για τη γυναίκα με τα μαύρα, δεν ξέρω αν βγήκε τελικά απ το σπίτι. Το φεγγαρόφωτο λάμπει ξανά. Και στις γωνίες του δωματίου οι σκιές σφίγγονται από μιαν αβάσταχτη μετάνοια, σχεδόν οργή, όχι τόσο για τη ζωή, όσο για την άχρηστη εξομολόγηση. Ακούτε; Το ραδιόφωνο συνεχίζει.)»
The translation by Peter Green and Beverly Bardsley in The Fourth Dimension (London: Anvil Press Poetry, 1993) reads:
Moonlight Sonata
A spring evening. A large room in an old house. A woman of a certain age, dressed in black, is speaking to a young man. They have not turned on the lights. Through both windows the moonlight shines relentlessly. I forgot to mention that the Woman in Black has published two or three interesting volume of poetry with a religious flavour. So, the Woman in Black is speaking to the Young Man:
Let me come with you. What a moon there is tonight!
The moon is kind – it won’t show
that my hair turned white. The moon
will turn my hair to gold again. You wouldn’t understand.
Let me come with you …
When there’s a moon the shadows in the house grow larger,
invisible hands draw the curtains,
a ghostly finger writes forgotten words in the dust
on the piano – I don’t want to hear them. Hush.
Let me come with you
a little farther down, as far as the brickyard wall,
to the point where the road turns and the city appears
concrete and airy, whitewashed with moonlight,
so indifferent and insubstantial
so positive, like metaphysics,
that finally you can believe you exist and do not exist,
that you never existed, that time with its destruction never existed.
Let me come with you …
We’ll sit for a little on the low wall, up on the hill,
and as the spring breeze blows around us
perhaps we’ll even imagine that we are flying,
because, often, and now especially, I hear the sound of my own dress
like the sound of two powerful wings opening and closing,
and when you enclose yourself within the sound of that flight
you feel the tight mesh of your throat, your ribs, your flesh,
and thus constricted amid the muscles of the azure air,
amid the strong nerves of the heavens,
it makes no difference whether you go or return
and it makes no difference that my hair has turned white
(that is not my sorrow – my sorrow is that my heart too does not turn white).
Let me come with you …
I know that each one of us travels to love alone,
alone to faith and to death.
I know it. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t help.
Let me come with you …
This house is haunted, it preys on me –
what I mean is, it has aged a great deal, the nails are working loose,
the portraits drop as though plunging into the void,
the plaster falls without a sound
as the dead man’s hat falls from the peg in the dark hallway
as the worn woolen glove falls from the knee of silence
or as moonbeam falls on the old, gutted armchair.
Once it too was new – not the photograph that you are starting at so dubiously –
I mean the armchair, very comfortable, you could sit in it for hours
with your eyes closed and dream whatever came into your head
– a sandy beach, smooth, wet, shining in the moonlight,
shining more than my old patent leather shoes that I send each month to the shoeshine shop on the corner,
or a fishing boat’s sail that sinks to the bottom rocked by its own breathing,
a three-cornered sail like a handkerchief folded slantwise in half only
as though it had nothing to shut up or hold fast
no reason to flutter open in farewell. I have always has a passion for handkerchiefs,
not to keep anything tied in them,
no flower seeds or camomile gathered in the fields at sunset,
nor to tie them with four knots like the caps the workers wear on the construction site across the street,
nor to dab my eyes – I’ve kept my eyesight good;
I’ve never worn glasses. A harmless idiosyncracy, handkerchiefs.
Now I fold them in quarters, in eighths, in sixteenths
to keep my fingers occupied. And now I remember
that this is how I counted the music when I went to the Odeion
with a blue pinafore and a white collar, with two blond braids
– 8, 16, 32, 64 –
hand in hand with a small friend of mine, peachy, all light and picked flowers,
(forgive me such digressions – a bad habit) – 32, 64 – and my family rested
great hopes on my musical talent. But I was telling you about the armchair –
gutted – the rusted springs are showing, the stuffing –
I thought of sending it next door to the furniture shop,
but where’s the time and the money and the inclination – what to fix first? –
I thought of throwing a sheet over it – I was afraid
of a white sheet in so much moonlight. People sat here
who dreamed great dreams, as you do and I too,
and now they rest under earth untroubled by rain or the moon.
Let me come with you …
We’ll pause for a little at the top of St. Nicholas’ marble steps,
and afterward you’ll descend and I will turn back,
having on my left side the warmth from a casual touch of your jacket
and some squares of light, too, from small neighbourhood windows
and this pure white mist from the moon, like a great procession of silver swans –
and I do not fear this manifestation, for at another time
on many spring evenings I talked with God who appeared to me
clothed in the haze and glory of such a moonlight –
and many young men, more handsome even than you, I sacrificed to him –
I dissolved, so white, so unapproachable, amid my white flame, in the whiteness of moonlight,
burnt up by men’s voracious eyes and the tentative rapture of youths,
besieged by splendid bronzed bodies,
strong limbs exercising at the pool, with oars, on the track, at soccer (I pretended not to see them),
foreheads, lips and throats, knees, fingers and eyes,
chests and arms and thighs (and truly I did not see them)
– you know, sometimes, when you’re entranced, you forget what entranced you, the entrancement alone is enough –
my God, what star-bright eyes, and I was lifted up to an apotheosis of disavowed stars
because, besieged thus from without and from within,
no other road was left me save only the way up or the way down. – No, it is not enough.
Let me come with you …
I know it’s very late. Let me,
because for so many years – days, nights, and crimson noons – I’ve stayed alone,
unyielding, alone and immaculate,
even in my marriage bed immaculate and alone,
writing glorious verses to lay on the knees of God,
verses that, I assure you, will endure as if chiselled in flawless marble
beyond my life and your life, well beyond. It is not enough.
Let me come with you ...
This house can’t bear me anymore.
I cannot endure to bear it on my back.
You must always be careful, be careful,
to hold up the wall with the large buffet
to hold up the table with the chairs
to hold up the chairs with your hands
to place your shoulder under the hanging beam.
And the piano, like a closed black coffin. You do not dare to open it.
You have to be so careful, so careful, lest they fall, lest you fall. I cannot bear it.
Let me come with you …
This house, despite all its dead, has no intention of dying.
It insists on living with its dead
on living off its dead
on living off the certainty of its death
and on still keeping house for its dead, the rotting beds and shelves.
Let me come with you …
Here, however quietly I walk through the mist of evening,
whether in slippers or barefoot,
there will be some sound: a pane of glass cracks or a mirror,
some steps are heard – not my own.
Outside, in the street, perhaps these steps are not heard –
repentance, they say, wears wooden shoes –
and if you look into this or that other mirror,
behind the dust and the cracks,
you discern – darkened and more fragmented – your face,
your face, which all your life you sought only to keep clean and whole.
The lip of the glass gleams in the moonlight
like a round razor – how can I lift it to my lips?
however much I thirst – how can I lift it – Do you see?
I am already in a mood for similes – this at least is left me,
reassuring me still that my wits are not failing.
Let me come with you …
At times, when evening descends, I have the feeling
that outside the window the bear-keeper is going by with his old heavy she-bear,
her fur full of burrs and thorns,
stirring dust in the neighborhood street
a desolate cloud of dust that censes the dusk,
and the children have gone home for supper and aren’t allowed outdoors again,
even though behind the walls they divine the old bear’s passing –
and the tired bear passes in the wisdom of her solitude, not knowing wherefore and why –
she’s grown heavy, can no longer dance on her hind legs,
can’t wear her lace cap to amuse the children, the idlers, the importunate,
and all she wants is to lie down on the ground
letting them trample on her belly, playing thus her final game,
showing her dreadful power for resignation,
her indifference to the interest of others, to the rings in her lips, the compulsion of her teeth,
her indifference to pain and to life with the sure complicity of death – even a slow death –
her final indifference to death with the continuity and knowledge of life
which transcends her enslavement with knowledge and with action.
But who can play this game to the end?
And the bear gets up again and moves on
obedient to her leash, her rings, her teeth,
smiling with torn lips at the pennies the beautiful and unsuspecting children toss
(beautiful precisely because unsuspecting)
and saying thank you. Because bears that have grown old
can say only one thing: thank you; thank you.
Let me come with you …
This house stifles me. The kitchen especially
is like the depths of the sea. The hanging coffee pots gleam
like round, huge eyes of improbable fish,
the plates undulate slowly like medusas,
seaweed and shells catch in my hair – later I can’t pull them loose –
I can’t get back to the surface –
the tray falls silently from my hands – I sink down
and I see the bubbles from my breath rising, rising
and I try to divert myself watching them
and I wonder what someone would say who happened to be above and saw these bubbles,
perhaps that someone was drowning or a diver exploring the depths?
And in fact more than a few times I’ve discovered there, in the depths of drowning,
coral and pearls and treasures of shipwrecked vessels,
unexpected encounters, past, present, and yet to come,
a confirmation almost of eternity,
a certain respite, a certain smile of immortality, as they say,
a happiness, an intoxication, inspiration even,
coral and pearls and sapphires; only I don’t know how to give them – no, I do give them;
only I don’t know if they can take them – but still, I give them.
Let me come with you …
One moment while I get my jacket.
The way this weather’s so changeable, I must be careful.
It’s damp in the evening, and doesn’t the moon
seem to you, honestly, as if it intensifies the cold?
Let me button your shirt – how strong your chest is
– how strong the moon – the armchair, I mean – and whenever I lift the cup from the table
a hole of silence is left underneath. I place my palm over it at once
so as not to see through it – I put the cup back in its place;
and the moon’s a hole in the skull of the world – don’t look through it,
it’s a magnetic force that draws you – don’t look, don’t any of you look,
listen to what I’m telling you – you’ll fall in. This giddiness,
beautiful, ethereal – you will fall in –
the moon’s marble well,
shadows stir and mute wings, mysterious voices – don’t you hear them?
Deep, deep the fall,
deep, deep the ascent,
the airy statue enmeshed in its open wings,
deep, deep the inexorable benevolence of the silence –
trembling lights on the opposite shore, so that you sway in your own wave,
the breathing of the ocean. Beautiful, ethereal
this giddiness – be careful, you’ll fall. Don’t look at me,
for me my place is this wavering – this splendid vertigo. And so every evening
I have little headache, some dizzy spells.
Often I slip out to the pharmacy across the street for a few aspirin,
but at times I’m too tired and I stay here with my headache
and listen to the hollow sound the pipes make in the walls,
or drink some coffee, and, absentminded as usual,
I forget and make two – who’ll drink the other?
It’s really funny, I leave it on the windowsill to cool
or sometimes drink them both, looking out the window at the bright green globe of the pharmacy
that’s like the green light of a silent train coming to take me away
with my handkerchiefs, my run-down shoes, my black purse, my verses,
but no suitcases – what would one do with them?
Let my come with you …
Oh, are you going? Goodnight. No, I won’t come. Goodnight.
I’ll be going myself in a little. Thank you. Because, in the end, I must
get out of this broken-down house.
I must see a bit of the city – no, not the moon –
the city with its calloused hands, the city of daily work,
the city that swears by bread and by its fist,
the city that bears all of us on its back
with our pettiness, sins, and hatreds,
our ambitions, our ignorance and our senility.
I need to hear the great footsteps of the city,
and no longer to hear your footsteps
or God’s, or my own. Goodnight.
The room grows dark. It looks as though a cloud may have covered the moon. All at once, as if someone had turned up the radio in the nearby bar, a very familiar musical phrase can be heard. Then I realize that “The Moonlight Sonata”, just the first movement, has been playing very softly through this entire scene. The Young Man will go down the hill now with an ironic and perhaps sympathetic smile on his finely chiselled lips and with a feeling of release. Just as he reaches St. Nicolas, before he goes down the marble steps, he will laugh – a loud, uncontrollable laugh. His laughter will not sound at all unseemly beneath the moon. Perhaps the only unseemly thing will be that nothing is unseemly. Soon the Young Man will fall silent, become serious, and say: “The decline of an era.” So, thoroughly calm once more, he will unbutton his shirt again and go on his way. As for the woman in black, I don’t know whether she finally did get out of the house. The moon is shining again. And in the corners of the room the shadows intensify with an intolerable regret, almost fury, not so much for the life, as for the useless confession. Can you hear? The radio plays on:
