They told us you'll conquer when you submit. We've submitted and found ashes. They told us you'll conquer when you love. We loved and found ashes. They told us you'll conquer when you abandon your life. We abandoned our life and found ashes. We found ashes. It remains to rediscover our life, now that we've nothing left. I imagine that he who'll rediscover life, in spite of so much paper, so many emotions, so many debates, and so much teaching, will be someone like us, only with a slightly tougher memory. We ourselves can't help still remembering what we've given. He'll remember only what he's gained from each of his offerings. What can a flame remember? If it remembers a little less than is necessary, it goes out; if it remembers a little more than is necessary, it goes out. If only it could teach us, while it burns, to remember correctly. I've come to an end: if only someone else could begin at the point where I've ended. There are times when I have the impression that I've reached the limit, that everything's in its place, ready to sing together in harmony. The machine on the point of starting. I can even imagine it in motion, alive, like something unexpectedly new. But there's still something: an infinitesimal obstacle, a grain of sand, shrinking and shrinking yet unable to disappear completely. I don't know what I ought to say or what I ought to do. Sometimes that obstacle seems to me like a teardrop wedged into some articulation of the orchestra, keeping it silent until it's been dissolved. And I have an unbearable feeling that all the rest of my life won't be sufficient to dissolve this drop within my soul. And I'm haunted by the thought that, if they were to burn me alive, this obstinate moment would be the last to surrender. Stratis Thalassinos describes a Man, George Seferis
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