Kostas Ouranis

NOSTALGIAS
by Kostas Ouranis
Translated by Alex Moskios

  I resemble the old sailors that I saw in Holland,
With their wrinkled faces and skins like leather mitts,
Sitting by the tall and weather bitten lighthouses,
Looking in calm silence at the departing ships.

Their eyes that still held shipwrecks and hurricanes,
With yearning and nostalgia looked at each vessel's bow,
As they lifted their heavy and noisy anchors
And like giants by the lighthouses kept moving now

After a time, in the endless sea the ships were moving,
And disappeared in a porphyry sunset horizon, leaving
Behind smoky rivers that spanned the sky before expiring.

  And yet the old sailors kept sitting by the lighthouses,
With their dead now pipes still hanging from their lips,
Eyes fixed on the horizon of the long now departed ships.

from here.

um grego nascido e educado em istanbul então constantinopla, cônsul em lisboa.