The marble shrine at the end of the path crumbles year by year and yet remains about the same: I can remember it when another brought me: Phaon remembered it: and now, memories are re-dedicated and burned, their ashes under my sandals, under my fingers and heart.
P
The best of life is illusion, I do not doubt. The best of Phaon may have been illusion.
Ah, the nettles of desire, the sleeplessness, the gnawing of regrets in my skull. These are emotions we can not share but must suffer alone till dawn, the dipper proving we are children.
I believe that we, as human beings, prove nothing: there is really nothing to prove except kindness and decency: all else is more illusion.
I take my harp but there are no words to accompany the notes. I urge Atthis to sing: play, darling, help me forget...let me see your face as I love to see it. Move your head with that fragile alacrity. Stretch your bare legs under your dress.
As I open the shutters in the morning, I miss him...the ocean has grown much, much wider.
My favorite olive tree says nothing to me.
P
Alcaeus wrote me: