Nikephoros Vrettakos : The orange trees of Sparta

 

 

The orange trees of Sparta, snow, flowers of love,

sprang into whiteness at your words, bending down their branches,

I hugged them to my small breast and went to my mother.

 

She was sitting under the moon, worrying about me,

she was sitting under the moon and she scolded me:

Yesterday I washed you, yesterday I changed you, where did you

run off to —

who filled your clothes with tears

and bitter-orange blossoms.

 

 

— translated from the Modern Greek by Jon Corelis