Omens

Yannis Ritsos

The statues were quickly hidden by weeds. We didn’t know
whether the statues had shrunk or whether the grasses had grown. Only
a large copper hand remained visible, like a terrible benediction,
above the tangle of unsightly shapes. Woodcutters
passed by on the road below—they never turned their heads.
Women no longer slept with their men. We could hear the night
dropping its apples into the river—one by one. And later on
the stars quietly sawing through that raised copper hand.

May 16, 1968
Partheni concentration camp


from Stones [Collected Poems: I ]