Athens, Karyotakis

Athens

A sweet hour. Athens sprawls like a hetaira
offering herself to April.
Sensuous scents are in the air,
the spirit waits for nothing any more.

The silver of the evening's eyelids
droops, grows heavy up above the houses.
Queenlike the Acropolis puts on
the sunset's crimson like a robe.

The first star rises with a kiss of light.
A zephyr by Ilissus falls in love with
quivering laurels, rosy nymphs.

A sweet hour of delight and love, when
small birds chasing one another raise a wind
that beats upon a column of Olympian Zeus...


Kostas Karyotakis, Peter J. King and Andrea Christofidou (trad.) http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shil0124/poems/nepenthe.htm