My journey is that of photography,
hers that of the baked earth, of terracotta.
She makes earthenware pots and sells them
to live off them
craft and history she sells
the clay is alive,
the day is alive as it goes to set
as the road to Trapezounta fills with light from lanterns
hanging like bracelets from her thin hands
her needs up to her elbows, she was beautiful, she is beautiful
she’ll always be…
the return gasps, we both return from the loneliness of the day
the car by the shore with the engine open
she by the shore with her heart open
she is alone
as the last cicada that delays to fill up on the daylight…
she’s left with only two
two pots with patterns
she tatters at the sun
at the squares that sway and become rhombuses
sometimes they become melancholic and disappear inside the baked earth
a Turkish woman with fake bracelets and no teeth
selling earthenware pots
red like blood
strong like bone
I didn’t buy any,
with the engine waiting to save it from its ordeal
I didn’t buy any
even so within just two moments I left
everything I held in my hands
in her hands
she passed her fingers along my eyes
I am not buying earthenware pots from Trapezounta
how can I tell her?
she gave me her sweetest look
she pulled something out of the secret place in her chest
something that looked like a fylahto*
-“a fylahto from illness, a fylahto from Charon”-
a fylahto to protect from something called poetry
and blinds you
and you don’t hear because the calendar pages are so mixed up
in your mind…
but earthenware pots I didn’t buy
I kissed her on the forehead
like she was a mother that threaded a blue bid on a string
like the thread of the road with dust on the hand
she tied it around my wrist like a blessing,
like a march…
I gave her everything I had around my neck
yet I didn’t buy her earthenware pots
and they were cheap
and they were dear in memory
I didn’t buy…
she put her palm high on the chest, just touching, with straight fingers
touching the vein that breaths and leaves no one to hear the thoughts
asking
saying her name with bad Greek accent
Avgerinu
as if the word had lost its colours like faded clothes
I put my palm high on her chest
asking
saying my name clearly
Anatolia
Anadolu, Anadolu
she started crying loudly
thinking that I knew her language
not knowing that it was my mother tongue she was answering with, kissing me
kissing my fingers
telling her caresses with her eyes
but I didn’t buy anything
all would be left by the shore
by the road that joins in the companionship,
the companionship of two women
that gave each other something that belonged to them
I don’t know how long she’d stay there to wait
to wait for a customer
a relative
a bus
another sun
another face on the road
I don’t know.
I only know why I didn’t buy
and after I left the crying of the setting sun would have been envious of the stillness,
I know…
but perhaps the earthenware pots would remain by the road
unsold
perhaps broken or abandoned
and Avgerinoula
that Turkish woman, a woman of my family
of my road
of my world
would wear my jewels next to her vein
and I would wear her fylahto next to my vein
and the earthenware pots would remain there
red and hard like blood
to remind of a bond…
To my employer later I wrote
and gave a title to the photograph
The terracotta woman
and in my soul Trapezounta would speak
differently
another story
free for me
and maybe, who knows, for Avgerini too.
Original poem by Erma Vasiliou, translated by Dina Gerolymou © 2010
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* a protection from evil usually containing holy relics
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010
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