AQuiet Retreat
What a pity, though you seemed fashioned
for clear words and great undertakings,
your fate, like an unjust wind,
kept turning you toward narrow passages.
And you were held back by small concerns,
and compromises without honor,
and times that never understood you
pushed you into works чуж of your soul.
And there came the silent day of yielding,
when you took the road toward easy favor,
and found yourself in courts that promised
security, offices, and order.
And you accepted them, not with joy,
but as though signing a resignation
from something you never dared to lose,
yet without which you could never truly live.
For elsewhere within you the need was aching;
not in golden glory or appointments,
but in a right word, in a single moment
when someone would recognize you truly.
And now your life flows on in quietness,
arranged, without disturbances;
yet within you, a “might-have-been” persists
like a light that did not die, only hid itself.
And yet the silence did not heal him,
it only came to know his name and keep it.
He moved through his days like a sealed harbor,
where ships once hoped to find anchorage
but now pass by unnoticing, without pause.
What he became was not failure itself,
but a quiet pact with absence
as though desire had signed itself away
in ink too faint for any eye to read.
And still, beneath the ordered surface of his life,
something endured like a buried flame
that never quite went out, only learned
how to survive without light.
Ήσυχη Υποχώρηση
Τι κρίμα, ενώ φάνηκες πλασμένος
για λόγια καθαρά και για μεγάλες πράξεις,
η τύχη σου, σαν άδικος άνεμος,
σε γύριζε πάντα σε στενά περάσματα.
Και σε κρατούσαν μικρές φροντίδες,
και συμβιβασμοί χωρίς τιμή,
και οι καιροί που δεν σε καταλάβαιναν
σε έσπρωχναν σ’ έργα ξένα της ψυχής σου.
Κι ήρθε η μέρα η σιωπηλή της κάμψης,
που πήρες δρόμο για την εύκολη εύνοια,
και βρέθηκες σε αυλές που υπόσχονταν
ασφάλεια, αξιώματα, και τάξη.
Κι εσύ τα δέχτηκες, όχι με χαρά,
μα σαν να υπογράφεις μια παραίτηση
από κάτι που δεν τόλμησες να χάσεις
μα που, χωρίς αυτό, δεν θα ζήσεις ποτέ.
Γιατί αλλού πονούσε μέσα σου η ανάγκη·
όχι σε δόξες χρυσές και διορισμούς,
μα σε μια λέξη σωστή, σε μια στιγμή
που κάποιος θα σε αναγνώριζε αληθινά.
Και τώρα η ζωή σου κυλάει ήσυχα,
τακτοποιημένη, δίχως αναταράξεις·
μα μέσα σου ένα «θα μπορούσε» επιμένει
σαν φως που δεν έσβησε, μόνο κρύφτηκε.
