Holiday

Yannis Ritsos

Two doors opened straight into sky.
Into the narrow passage cluttered with farmer's baskets
of clematis sticks and leaves. Childhood names:
apricots, peaches, grapes, pears, figs,
all of their peculiar aromas coloring
a large, revolving glass sphere
like the colored globe in the closed school office,
and from outside the mischievous cicadas will recite
their poems each one the same—and above criticism.




from Small Dedications (1960-1965) [Collected Poems Delta' -- pg 142]