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Phoebe Giannisi
Translated from the Greek by Brian Sneeden
On reliefs inside the large graves
you can observe in fine detail
how they caught ducks with huge nets on the Nile
how they drove water to the fields with sluices
how they swam in the water by kicking their feet
how they ate onion bread at the table with their hands
how the cook would cut
vegetables into slices with his knife
and fry the onions in a pan
how the mothers would call out at dusk
to draw their children home
how giant magnolia flowers would fall suddenly
slowly white on the dirt
how the cicadas stubbornly kept singing
even after sunset
how the sea was calm at morning and restless by noon
his fingers struck the keys so violently
the crickets reminded us
of this late summer
that soon ends
from the book CICADA / New Directions
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It is a poem written on the ferry boat of return from the island of Paros to Piraeus. I was sitting on the bench under the open sky looking at the sea and I felt the summer ending, as the day was fading. I had with me "A Little History of the World" of Ernst Gombrich. And I started gliding, as I was keeping notes, from his description of what the ancient Egyptian paintings were showing, to other details of scenes and senses of the everyday life, ancient and contemporary, always the same in this geographical area, in this part of the world.

Phoebe Giannisi on "Paros-Piraeus: Mini-History of the World"
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