THE ROAD

By Andreas Embirikos
Athens

NOMAS#1_LOW (dragged)-26

… The road, macadam or asphalt-coated,
is everywhere always passing through – Athens,
Moscow, Yaroslav, London and Beijing,
through Santa Fe de Bogota and Guadalajara,
the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Cordilleras,
through sacred places such as Delphi and Dodoni,
through glorious places
such as Salona,
such as the bridge of Alamana,
as well as other places of renown,
like that cosmopolitan city across which sensually flows the grey Seine.

… And the road, macadam or asphalt- coated
goes on and on, harder than ever, softening only,
no matter what country, no matter what landscape, beneath
the resplendent radiance of immortality, only under the footsteps of those poets
whose souls are one with their bodies,
those immaculate and true poets, as well as
of their brethren, All the Saints.

Transldated by Marinos Argyriades