Watery Spot

NIKOS FOKAS

Walking the same route everyday,
Glimpsing on the road's surface, at some point, slow-moving, inexplicable
  water,
Streamlets that never dry up, I think how tears or sweat
Can keep welling from our face, though we wipe nonstop,
So too that moisture wells endlessly from a certain watery depth.

And just as when a plumbing main breaks or the roof leaks,
And sooner or later large damp stains appear on the walls or ceiling,
Disturbing our peace of mind, so the water in question
Bothers the pedestrians wandering here and there,
Going about their business, their mental preoccupations.

Could this dampness be what remains of who-knows-what antique river
Worshipped here from time immemorial, some fluid deity
Which permeates the asphalt as mere moisture
Unable, alas, to create, as of old, greenery and romantic idylls
Which might inspire love on its banks, and in time become a myth?

What do you expect an outlandish city to answer,
A city landed on us from elsewhere,
With light that would be beautiful without the things it has to illuminate;
What testimony do you expect from vehicles that on this very spot
Spatter us, or from passersby who cross the watery area on tiptoe,
  concentrating on their pantlegs?

But those of us who still possess a divinatory soul might suspect
That this sludge perhaps is nothing other than our own Eridanus, and see in
  that river’s drama
Our proper drama, in its degradation our proper degradation;
And then might want to give a signal of recognition, which it needs so badly,
A signal for which (and this can't be ruled out) it sends forth secret entreaties.

As for me, it pleases me to greet these dirty waters,
Or, if it happens to be July, these traces of moisture on the asphalt,
So holy, as I see it, that I go down on my knees—a public spectacle—
And rest my forehead there
In a deep bow of piety, as if praying.

And, as a cow sensing abundant water stamps her feet on the ground,
And if deprived of that water, may become dangerous,
I thump my fist against the asphalt hated by cattle as well,
Adoring even the slightest wetness it emits
As a sign perhaps of some vein of water, some buried stream, some
  fountainhead.

Translated from the Greek by Don Schofield

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