Work from Paros Poetry and Translation Symposium 2019: Thanasis Fotiades
Without Limits
Sperm whales
traverse the oceans –
the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Arctic –
imperceptible tender tumescences of the world
they warm their porous liquid bodies in the currents
unfold a grace gray, soft and smooth.
Distance does not matter to them
of “who gets what” they know nothing
their cold fins shudder almost disproportionately bold
across the terraqueous globe
they breathe deeply
in the Indian and lightly in the Antarctic
conversing in the sonority of cries
joyous arias and yawps
Underwater waves of sound and matter and energy
in the optical or acoustical or center from which they are recharged
in the receptors of transparent skin
or even in their first undulating substance
they advance together rhythmically and mate
one body framed by the other,
themselves replacing the compass needles,
redistributing in the South and North the genes of their species
puffing and blowing passionately as a fountain,
sinking again inside soft darkness
So I might inspire you tonight across the terraqueous globe
So that we do not feel, blind, the world’s borders.
(breathe)
Thanasis Fotiadis
translated by
Pavlos Stavropoulos and Leonard Schwartz
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