Why are you punishing me? What is my crime? (Yannis Ritsos: from Diaries of Exile)

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846: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 16 June 2015

Why are you punishing me? What is my crime?

Yannis Ritsos: November 6

Evening. The bell for the evening meal.
Shouts from the boys playing soccer.
Was it yesterday? -- I don’t remember; -- a stunning sunset
so violet, so gold, so rosy.
We stood there. We watched. We talked
alone, alone, tossing our voices into the wind
so as to tie things together, to unbind our hearts.

A letter arrived in the yard:
Panousis’s son was killed.
Our talk nestled against the walls.
The sunset suddenly nothing.

The night had no hours. The knot loosened.
Panousis’s aluminum plate grew cold on the table.
We lay down. We covered ourselves. We loved one another
around that untouched plate that no longer steamed.

Around midnight the black cat came in through the window
and ate some of Panousis’s food.
Then the moon came in
and hung motionless over the plate.
Panousis’s arm on the blanket
was a severed plane tree.

Well then -- must we really be so sad
in order to love one another?

Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990): November 6, from Diaries of Exile (1948-1950), translated by Karen Emmerich and Edmund Leroy Keeley, 2014

7314: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 2 January 2015

8904: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 11 November 2014

9036: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 6 September 2014

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 13 March 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 8 March 2014 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 7 March 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 2 March 2015 (from Daily Practice)

 

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 5 March 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 1 March 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 28 February 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 24 February 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 23 February 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 10 February 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 9 February 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 8 February 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 6 February 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 4 February 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 3 February 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 1 February 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 31 January 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 29 January 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 27 January 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 26 January 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 7 January 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 12 January 2015 (from Daily Practice)

 

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 2 January 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 1 January 2015 (from Daily Practice)

Untitled: photo by Petros Kotzabasis, 15 January 2015 (from Daily Practice)

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Smoke rises over barricades on an Athens street before the referendum: photo by Kay Nietfeld / European Pressphoto Agency via Los Angeles Times, 5 July 2015