Thursday, September 17, 2009

Fata Morgana: Arabesque...

I'll take communion with sea water,
distilled from your body drop by drop,
in an ancient copper cup from Algiers,
as done by pirates of old before the fight.

Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana*.

A leather sail, all smeared with wax,
smelling of cedar-wood, of incense and of varnish,
like the smell of the hold in an aging ship
built in olden times on Euphrates in Phoenicia.

Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana.

Fire-hued rust in the mines of Sina,
the capes of Gerakini and Stratoni.
That ship-coating, that old blessed rust gave us birth,
It feeds us, feeds on us, and then it kill us!

Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana.






























The poem Fata Morgana by sea-faring Greek poet Nikos Kavvadias is set to music and sung by Mariza Koch.

*A "fata morgana" is a mirage, an optical phenomenon caused by abrupt variances in air temperature. Objects on the horizon, such as islands, cliffs, ships or icebergs, appear elongated and elevated

All photos © by Elena Vosnaki

8 comments:

  1. Thank you for such a lovely way to start off my morning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful & the pictures as well.
    Thank you :)
    V

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous18:12

    Dear E,

    What a beautiful poem. I can actually smell the sea and the leather and the wood.

    Thank you.

    Natalia

    ReplyDelete
  4. You're welcome, J! I hope your day is going perfectly :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. V,

    thank you, it's one of my favourite songs (and poems)> so evocative.

    ReplyDelete
  6. N,

    thanks, it's wonderful when something is vivid through the word medium. Love this song!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow I could smell the salty sea! Amazing ... and I really like the first picture, you have a talent for framing an image :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. A,

    glad you liked it!

    I think I should have worked a bit more on the picture, perhaps catching an earlier hour so the shadow wouldn't be soooo long. Oh well...

    Hope you're having fun!

    ReplyDelete

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