Sounion

Like something          
That has been, but
Has not become, the landscape
Appears, slides, and loses contours
The naked columns, outside of their being
Do not persist, just breathe with the open fibres   
As if the whole of their profusion was not enough
For them to gain persistence, to preserve, as people use
To save what is the rest of them against the penetrating wind of time
You can call it time, this unimaginable spiral screwing, screaming, rusty               
Like some metal thing forgotten on a shelf of a garden during the shower
Or: something clicking, oily, full of moving outlines, submits to hands
To drop the clumsy fingers, to leave the body all alone
But nothing happens for what happened - did,
What’s going to have happened, stays away
As if one throws an oval dusty stone
To strike the goal, but fails, so we
Don’t notice: time is working
Inside us, only pain
Exists               

So delicate, so fresh, like a white bird’s wing, it has been to-morrow
To-day has killed to-morrow, blew off its face, and let to-evening
Mock both of them: don’t ask, your answer is already
Prevailing in the asking, and this circle is for us
Intolerable: scent of gardens in your smile
Withdraws its possibilities, for you again
No, didn’t sow the plants, didn’t water
And will not taste the fruits
The agony of tongue
Behind the teeth
How fresh, how
Delicate it was to-
morrow, you lay like a column
Wrapped in wind and air, saw them fight
For privilege to touch you, and no one could
Be the victor, clouds, fugitive and flying nowhere
To be returned exactly to the point of their departure
As you return your light kiss which has been given to you
And ripened in your fecund mouth, longing, brimming over
The farthest goal still twinkling, tuning, lost beforehand, as it was