The Unquiet Land

excerpt

but of white, sanded wood, the fingers long, thin, hard and knotted, like the bleached bits of sticks that lay along the shore. Life had left them long before.
Nights in dark barns full of hay were best. Or warm byres next to where the cows were stalled. He remembered waking up one morning on a bed of straw in a byre and listening to the pained lowing of cows and the swishing of milk into a pail. And the farmer found him and gave him the warm milk to drink and asked him to stay. And the policemen came and asked him questions. A dead body in a nearby barn. Padraig had blanked everything from his mind. All but a shadow gliding in out of the night, and himself fleeing in fear before he was seen, crouching in a dark corner behind a cart, trembling with fright. Then the rustle of dried straw, and his mother moaning loudly and sobbing. And he ran away. Ran to the barn where he heard the cows, knowing that cows were warm and safe and would protect him.
But he could not escape the Devil. Satan had marked him for his own, and wherever Padraig went Satan found him and convulsed his body with the evil of Hell. The people were always afraid. Once in a village they came close to burning him. The occasion was All Hallow’s Eve, the night when spirits and witches and devils roved abroad. A large fire burned in the village square, and children in grotesque masks danced around it. Padraig tried to join in, moving towards the ring of dancers with his arms outstretched.
“It’s Satan’s child bringing the Devil here,” someone cried.
“Burn him and the Devil too,” cried another.
“Burn him, burn him, burn him,” the dancing children chanted.
Padraig turned to run, but the crowd closed in. Rough hands grabbed him. He screamed and kicked as they bore him to the fire. They held his feet and arms and swung him like a sack of flour. “One, two, three, go.”
But they failed to let go simultaneously. Padraig’s body turned and twisted in the air and dropped a few feet short of the fire. His head cracked against the cobbles. A week later he saw the dark red track that his blood had left as it trickled between the stones and almost made it to the gutter.
“We weren’t really going to burn him,” one boy told the doctor. “We wouldn’t do such a thing. Honestly.”
Padraig gazed at the crucifix he held in his hands. “Almighty Jesus, which of us has suffered more from man’s inhuman ways? Can my suffering bring salvation to my fellow men as Yours has done? Must some men always suffer so that others may go free? What would You have me endure, Lord, to bring Finn MacLir to the fold of Your blessed saints?

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Orange

Sin
Brazen thief
that leads my mind
to an erotic voyage and
your nipple
ready to jump
over your bra and
standing with no skirt
before the mirror
you accentuate your eyes
upright virgin thought
my paradisiacal inferno
that I long to sing
with such fervour

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Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume II

What Time is It?
Two eucalyptus trees in the sky. The edge of a roof,
red tiles
a wooden staircase and the cloths on the cloths line. The sky
painted light-blue
and the old silence with its sack, thousands of cigarette butts
in my memory,
bitter taste. You have no appetite, you wait for the moon
to rise, slowly, silently like the cat’s walk on the ledge
of the afternoon.
The curtain, smoked from the tiredness of the day,
is pulled aside upon the horizon, not too far from
the inn with the four horses — the dusk
fades on their backs,
not far from the last shack in the distance of the autumn
suburb.
The voices of children fade away behind the fence walls
and the cane of time, tick-tack is heard
down there by the seashore.
A stopped truck turned on its lights,
then the window
then another one.
The angels look at the evening with both hands
under their chins.
Ah, how far away we empty our tired hoping
glances
those oil paintings onto the evening clouds with
the slanting lights
almost no shape, only a puffy down that falls off
the dream;
a table with two wine glasses at the seashore tavern,
a lone chair with its lonely shadow,
your shadow with nothing else in the damp seashore
and the dog of the ship among the stars.
Simply, deep in your heart, you don’t remember
the soft steps in the street, the open window —
Then, isn’t he gone? He isn’t gone.
Serene rhythm, heartbeat of a bird —
go to sleep, the breath of a sea soul, go to sleep;
quietly, quietly this rhythm pulls your heart
like the rocking of the moored boat
that is pushed softly by the two fingers
of the moon, the watery moon. Good night.
When the shadows of the clouds will pass over
the city with big strides,
when the great message of the winds will return,
when the trees will chase their shadow in the sky
sharing with the clouds the rags of a wild tempest,
when the dresses of women get glued on their legs
and the wind with the ripped landscape will carry on
behind them
the cyclamens will poke up through schisms of the rocks
and the mouth of the night will be muffled by the water
of forgetfulness and the patched autumn overcoat will
show its square patches on the elbows and the lapels —
ah, at that time, many carts will roll down the damp road,
loaded with baskets and hay,
straight from the villages of spring, straight from
the carefree of the plains
and the oil lamps will light all their memories
over the open books, over the crossed arms.
You’ll have your voice hidden in your pockets
like crumbs of our old bread the ants hide in their earthly
homes
you’ll still have something to feed the mouth of the damp
evening star.
You, my friend, you come back when the countryside
is deserted
every time the vacationers with their suitcases wait
at the quay
and the evenings are sitting all alone in the square of
the island
a long line of empty chairs turned upside on
the round tables where loneliness dines raising
its veil a little,
and the garden benches left in the rain, my good friend
my beloved friend
your silent unshaven face
your faithful arm
behind your strong shoulders
the roar of the gale —
what a warmth your hand has.
You’re here near me. Good evening.
The lonely moon — look — like a silver plate,
like a plate full of leftovers at the small restaurant
of sorrow when the travellers are gone and
you hear the far away whistle of the ship under
the night rooms.
The gale behind your back; we can wait.
We know. We’re ready.
This evening ties us together with its silence.
We’ll talk tomorrow. These ropes that tied big ships,
our necks and our years, make a good scaffold.
The sky
has known of us before we knew each other, before
we separated, before the handkerchief was waved
from the deck.
Did you see? The weather has cleared up. A ripped cloud
gets angry at the moon.
The hotel manager undresses behind the window.
What time is it?
And on top of the platform of the old summer with
the exiled flags
you, my good friend, you light the cigarettes
of the stars, you tie our handkerchiefs –flags
on the wet wire, these handkerchiefs that we used
to wipe our foreheads and our eyes.
You’ll never leave. You’ll never leave us. Your hand,
your faithful hand which raises the shadows above our eyes
so we’ll see the dawn again between two burnt out candles.
Good morning.
The children are coming. The sun pushes doors with its
shoulders. The doors open. Sky.
Eyes meet eyes. The world is enlarged. The white
ship.
Soon it’ll be sunny; daisies and whitewashed dreams
and a flag on the highest mast of high noon
will flutter in the sea breeze. Good morning.
Good morning.

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Water in the Wilderness

excerpt

Please send a car to pick us up and take us to Uncle Morley’s. And make the snow stop, and the wind stop cause it’s awful cold, an’ Bobby’s shivering something terrible.” She thought of adding ‘Amen’, but decided she wouldn’t stop praying. She’d just keep on talking to God as they walked along. She didn’t need to talk out loud because she had to save her breath to walk, but Uncle Morley said God could hear you anyway, even if you just thought the prayer.
The wind was getting stronger and beginning to whip the falling snow into a frenzy. Rachael had only seen one blizzard in her nearly eight years, and that had been from the safety of her parents’ home. But it had still been scary, and she remembered hearing afterwards that a man had frozen to death that night, out there in the cold.
And then, as hard as she tried not to, she started to cry.
“Rachael! Bobby!”
She must be dreaming. She had not heard a car. There were no nearby buildings that she could see. Who was calling them? Had they been rescued? She swung around, peering behind them, trying to see who had called. Had she imagined it?
“Rachael, wait.”
Now she could see a dark form moving towards them out of the murkiness. Excitement and relief made her feel lightheaded. She didn’t care who it was; it didn’t matter because now they would be safe.
The person was running now, staggering towards them like a drunken man – like she’d seen her dad walk sometimes. Could it be their daddy?
Then she knew, but she could hardly believe her eyes. “Ronnie,” she gasped. “Ronnie, what ….”
He stood before them, bending from the waist, gasping for breath as if he’d been running for miles. His face was red, and a white beard of frost covered his chin where his breath had frozen around his woolen scarf. Bobby grabbed his cousin’s legs and held on, sobbing.
Rachael could hardly stop her own tears. Roughly she brushed them from her eyes with her wet mittens. “Oh Ronnie, I thought you’d left us.”
“I did, for a while.” His breath came easier now, and he straight…

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The Circle

excerpt

Hakim is left alone and digs in to finish the report, but his mind simply
cannot concentrate on it; he calls George Pappas.
“Hey, George, how are you?”
“I’m okay, what is on your mind this morning, Hakim?”
“Call Edith. See whether you can get the keys to the apartment; we’d like to
look at it again. I’ll bring along my friend and Jennifer’s mom.”
“That’s not a problem; do you want to do this today?”
“Yes, if you can arrange it.”
“I’ll confirm with you later.”
Hakim goes back to his computer and promises himself not to stop unless he is
finished. He works for a while and completes the small report regarding their
newest products. With that off his mind, he calls Jennifer at work and lets her
know about visiting the new apartment later in the evening with Emily and Talal.
“Okay, honey. I’ll call my mom and you call Talal; do you want to have lunch
with me in an hour?”
“I’m afraid I cannot do that, baby. I have a business lunch with Peter and
another guy from the office. Sorry.”
“You never have time for me, these days.”
“Oh sweetheart, you complain for no reason again,” he argues.
“Bye, honey. See you later,” she says and puts the phone down.
By one o’clock, Hakim, Peter, and Robert are at Mario’s for lunch. They get a
booth, and when the server comes to get their order, Hakim asks the others
whether they would like to share a bottle of wine.
“I would,” Robert agrees.
“I’ll have a beer,” says Peter.
Hakim turns to the server and orders. “A bottle of red wine, a Shiraz, and a
beer for my friend, please.”
They are silent a few moments and then Peter breaks the ice, “We should
have lunch together more often.”
“What are you guys up to?” Robert asks, looking at Hakim.
Hakim waits until their server pours their wine then turns to Robert, “We are
concerned about the direction the company is headed Robert; we are concerned
that we the shareholders, aren’t receiving as much value as we should be getting,
looking at the price of our shares in the marketplace. We’d like to attract the
attention of a larger number of people and set our goals higher regarding
product quality. We don’t see ourselves getting much further ahead with these
goals if we stay the course. I simply don’t have much trust in the abilities of Lorne
to take us any further, to take this company to the next level. He has done what
he is capable of so far, but I want a lot more from this company.”

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