The Cats of Saint Nikolas
and yet
deep in my heart sings
without a lyre or escort
the Furies’ threnody
that no one has taught me
oh, the sweet hope’s benefit
that vanished I have lost
- AGAMEMNON, 990 FF
‘The Cape of Cats is ahead…’ the captain told me
pointing through the mist to a low seashore
vacant beach, Christmas Day,‘…
and there to the west far away
the waves gave birth to Aphrodite
the place is called the Rock of the Greeks.
Turn three degrees to the east.’
The cat I lost a year ago had the eyes of Salome
and how Ramazan
stared straight at the eyes of death
for days on in the snow of the East
in the frozen sun
straight in the eyes for days on the young chthonian god.
Traveller don’t stop.‘
Turn three degrees to the left’ the helmsman whispered.
…perhaps my friend had stopped
out of work now
locked in a small house with icons
searching for windows behind the frames.
The bell of the ship struck
like the coin of a vanished city that brings to mind, as it falls
alms of another era.
‘Strange’ the captain said again
‘this bell—on this day—reminded me of that other one,
the monastery bell.
That story was told by a monk
half crazy, a dreamer monk.
‘It was at the time of the great drought—
forty years without rain—
the whole island was devastated
people died and snakes were born.
Millions of snakes in this cape
thick like a man’s leg
and poisonous.
Those days the monastery of Saint Nikolas was
under the control of the Saint Basil monks
who couldn’t work the fields and
couldn’t put their flocks to pasture;
they were saved by the cats they raised.
Every daybreak the bell would strike
and an army of cats would run to the battle.
All day long they fought until
the bell struck for the evening meal.
After the supper the bell would strike again
and the cats would go out to battle during the night.
It was a miracle to see them, people say,
some of them limping, some blind, some
without nose, with one ear, their skin in shreds.
Thus with four bell strikes per day
months went by, years, season after season.
With wild persistence and always wounded
they got rid of the snakes but at the end they vanished;
they just couldn’t put up with so much poison.
Like a sunken ship
they left no sign on the sea-froth not even a meow,
not even a bell.
Steady as you go! What could the wretched do
fighting and drinking day and night
the blood of those poisonous snakes?
Centuries of poison; generations of poison.’
‘Straight as you go’ echoed the helmsman indifferently.
Wednesday 5 February 1969
Mayanaam
vequinox
Manolis 