Remember, Body...

by Constantinos P. Cavafy

Like the beautiful bodies of those who died young, tearfully interred in a grand mausoleum with roses by their heads and jasmine at their feet – so seem those desires that have passed without fulfilment; without a single night of pleasure, or one of its radiant mornings.

Immersed again in art, I recover from the labour of creating it.

Since nine o’clock when I lit the lamp a ghostly image of my adolescent body came to me, reminding me of closed and scented chambers, and past pleasures – what brazen pleasures! It brought before my eyes streets now unrecognizable, bars once filled with movement, now closed, cafés and theatres that once existed.

For in the dissolute life of my youth the plans for my poetry were taking shape; the boundaries of my art were being drawn.

I have gazed so much on beauty that my eyes overflow with it.

Body, remember not only how deeply you were loved,

Out of Time. All of these things are so very old – the sketch, the ship, that afternoon.

I have fashioned you in joy and in sorrow, through so many happenings, out of so many things. You’ve been wholly transformed into feeling, for me.