Jonas Lie, The Black Teapot (1911), detail. Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York
. . . nὰ ποὺ ὁ μέγας Θάνατος μοῦ γίνηκε ἀδερφός!—Sikelianos
Because I trusted my gut and lauded Earth,
Held back in flight my secret pinions’ strain,
And rooted mindfulness in willing dearth,
The dancing spring, live source of holy worth,
Revived to quench my thirst again …
Because I never figured out the when or how,
But plunged my mind into each passing call
As though it with eternity were allied,
Whether in summer plenitude or winter squall,
The monad sphere gleams like a berry now.
Rain falls from heaven and the fruit’s inside!
Because, instead of “Life starts, then ends,”
I said: “After a rainy day, light bends
More richly; earthquakes bolster up the sky;
Earth’s secret living pulse tells why,”
Great Death Himself’s become my brother.
“All that’s solid melts into air” [said Marx’s mother].
Epigraph: “ . . . Great Death Himself’s become my brother.”—Angelos Sikelianos, «Γιατὶ βαθιά μου δόξασα ["Because in my depths I praised"]», imitated from Sikelianos's Greek by PRD, https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/because-i-trusted-my-gut/?print=print.