Poetic Movements

Τσάι στη φωτιά λες παραμύθια στους μεγάλους σαν τα παιδιά να κοιμηθούν. Απόψε σα να γέρνουν τα δέντρα αγκαλιά στη νύχτα σκέπαστρο. Δυο στάλες σκέψης και φεγγάρι κοκκινωπό. Νοτιάς. ------------------------------ Tea on fire fairy tales you say for adults to fall asleep like kids. Tonight trees seem to curve a hug for the night an awning. Two drops of thought and a reddish moon. Southern wind. November 2017, Samothraki. Photograph: 24/10/2017, Chóra, Samothraki.  

Until the rain stops I will have swallowed the stars hoping to make them sprout again bright patches in a dark sky. Until the rain stops I will have wished to the ocean to devour the clouds and hide them an unseen cosmos. Until the rain stops I will have called names again expecting gods to intervene. Until the rain stops I will be standing here perhaps rooted to a land that almost slipped away. And until the rain stops I will have woken up the three Fates asking to see through their eyes and take back all authority of theirs. 20 November 2017, Samothraki. Photograph: the castle of Chóra in a starry night, 19 November 2017.

Afloat a sky travelling a bright day burning. You dipped your fingers an ocean of clouds expectations. Beginnings and endings in chaos in times unveiled. Night sounds sustaining a sense of summer uncertain. Returning so dazed to sleep first watching asteroids over the sky above the gardens down the sea. It was you after all that night the same night paving way. It is you above noisy cicadas restless crickets singing peace. Home the sense I carry with you pacing on top skies collapsed waters astray paradises lost. Home will be here again you are not gone too far. November 2017, Samothraki.     Photograph: Vlihós, Samothraki, 31 October 2017.

[ΜΕΡΟΣ Α'] [ΜΕΡΟΣ Β'] [ΜΕΡΟΣ Γ'] Ι. Περιμένοντας στην παραλαβή αποσκευών του αεροδρομίου, παρατήρησε την αφίσα για το φεστιβάλ νέων χορογράφων φτιαγμένη με μία φωτογραφία του Άρη από τις πρόβες που είχαν ήδη προηγηθεί. Μηχανικά τράβηξε το κινητό της και έβγαλε την αφίσα φωτογραφία. Οι αποσκευές άρχισαν να εμφανίζονται στον κυλιόμενο διάδρομο και σύντομα εντόπισε τη δική της. Στην Αθήνα έκανε ακόμα ζέστη, αν και είχαν φτάσει ήδη στα μέσα του Σεπτέμβρη. Μόλις το κινητό της έπιασε το δίκτυο τηλεφωνίας, έκανε την κλήση. «Έλα, Άρη, έφτασα.» ΙΙ. «Είναι που αυτά που σε βαραίνουν σε γειώνουν κιόλας και πατάς γερά τα πόδια σου στη γη. Αυτό σε κάνει καλύτερο χορευτή και πιο εμπνευσμένο χορογράφο. Και στους δύο σου ρόλους, ο στόχος γίνεται κοινός: να πετάξεις», είπε ο Άρης σε μία από τις ερωτήσεις των δημοσιογράφων που ακολούθησαν την παρουσίασή του, το πρώτο βράδυ του φεστιβάλ. «Τι ήταν αυτό που σας οδήγησε σε αυτή την προσέγγιση;» «Μία φίλη», απάντησε

I have to tell you about all these new others the strangers and the friends the places and the times spent these two years passed like a storm; no one can tell them separately. I keep looking for you in people’s hands and smiles talks and pauses; all those poems were for you. I keep growing resembling you; more with every word written down. It was a beautiful dusk when you left and I was standing on the same rocky land as now; I sheltered you here. A hazy moon through my window tonight natural voices the animals’ grief; I’ve grown to fear the rain. I have to tell you but my words have poured into soil; contemporary libations. No ship will sail me tomorrow away; for this place now is the prayer I’ve been holding back from you   at home. 4 November 2017, Samothraki. Photograph: lilacs, Chóra, Samothraki, 31 October 2017. 

Picked up greens, 31 October 2017. One of the legendary ethnographic descriptions I had read at my undergraduate time in Anthropology was – and will forever be – Nadia C. Seremetakis’ description of picking up greens from the field during her research period in Mani (Greece). I am recalling it from memory, being now in my own field and having my copy back home in Athens. She went out to the field and started cutting greens herself. A villager passed by and asked whether her mother (or grandmother, cannot recall this properly) had shown her how to do it. Momentarily she waved and answer yes. Then, she halted and thought that, as a matter of fact, she had never picked up greens before. How did she know which ones to pick and which ones not, and how? It is a fortunate coincidence not to have my copy of The Senses Still (1996 )  with me. Had I brought it to Samothraki, it would have probably been ‘adorned’ with muddy water when the deluge took place , just like my other