Contentment

Yannis Ritsos

Not how there was nothing about prestige, about commendation, about the exemplary—
a sound of a key in the lock—just that sound in the night,
a thought about the shape of the key, about its simple mechanism,
and that secret meshing and obedience. Clearly it wasn’t
about prestige: if not, then what? Which quality should be singled out for praise?—
the unknown one that holds the key and the unknown door.
Perhaps only ego: when we hold that sound,
while, at the far end of the street, the old door-keeper makes his rounds completely naked
having covered his head with a white towel.

May 18, 1968
Partheni concentration camp


from Stones [Collected Poems: I ]