In the beginning the light* and the first hour
when lips still in clay
taste things of the world
Green blood and bulbs golden in the earth
And the sea so exquisite in its sleep spread
unbleached gauzes of sky
beneath the carob trees and the tall standing palm trees
There alone
grievously weeping
My soul sought a Signalman and Herald
Then I remember I saw
the three Black Women
Lifting their arms to the East
Saw their gilded backs and on their right
the slowly dissolving cloud
that they left And plants of strange design
It was the whole many-rayed sun with its axle
in me that beckoned And
he who I truly was He many aeons ago
He still green in the fire He uncut from the sky
I felt him come and lean
over my cradle
like memory become present
it took on the voice of trees, of waves:
"Your commandment," he said, "is this world
written in your viscera
Read and try
and fight" he said
"Each with his own weapons" he said
And he spread his arms like
a young novice God to mold together pain and joy.
First high up on the walls
the Seven Axes** were
pried loose
like the Storm
at its zero point where a
is fragrant again from the beginning
the blood returned home clean
and monsters took on a human face
So sensible the Incomprehensible
And then all the winds of my family came
boys with puffed-out cheeks
and wide green tails like Mermaids
and other aged men known of old
testaceous long-bearded
And the winds divided the cloud in two And then again into four
and they blew the bit that remained and sent it North
And lofty the great Koules*** set a broad foot on the waters
The horizon line brightened
visible and thick and impenetrable
* "In the beginning" brings to mind the opening of both John’s Gospel and the Book of Genesis.
** "the Seven Axes": On the wall of Heracleion, on Crete, near where Elytis was born, were seven axes symbolizing the seven regiments enforcing Turkish rule. In 1912 Crete joined Greece, and the axes were taken down.
*** "Koules": Venetian fortress on the bay of Heracleion.