Midday Summer Dream: 8

Yannis Ritsos

AT NIGHT the almond trees pass beneath our windows slow and sad in their white dresses, like those pale girls from the orphanage returning from a short, Sunday outing, nearly asleep, holding hands two by two, not speaking, not looking up to the stars sprouting one by one in the shadows, distant and happily.

Tomorrow we'll tell the almond trees to go to the beach and wash the dust of our sadness from their faces.

In the evening, when they return cheerful, they'll give us our first words washed clean in the sea, and we'll cry in the open windows for the joy of being able to cry.


from Midday Summer Dream (1938) [Collected Poems: Alpha ---pg 344]