When you are setting up the table
before you sit down
check thoroughly
your opposite chair
if it is strong perhaps it creaks
perhaps the notches became loose
perhaps the joints have worn out
if a worm
undermines the frame
because the person who doesn't sit there
gets heavier by the day.
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Personal notes:
This poem was published as part of the collection 'We moved next door' (2007).
Its themes, like in many of Kiki Dimoula's poems, involve memory, personal loss/absence and the experience of being alone. This experience can be painful, but endurable.
The poet may be addressing herself, or giving advice to her audience.
The vacant chair opposite to the poet is a metaphor for the memory or mental presence of an intimate other. Perhaps this person used to sit there with her/us (an actual loss), or perhaps this person was never there (a desired/imagined loss). Either way, the poet/us are alone at the table.
Every day the preservation of this memory/mental presence (a ritual) becomes harder, though the reasons for this are not clear. Is it because with age the poet's/our mental abilities are becoming weaker (and therefore the memory becomes heavier to hold), or is it because she is/we are increasingly hurting by this person's absence? The poet may be warning us that the person's absence will become more and more painful, or maybe she is being sarcastic about her own fixation with this ritual.
There is a hint of optimism as well. Is the ritual an act of holding on to a painful loss/desire, or is it a way to strengthen the resistance to this pain and make it endurable?
In Greek, Dimoula refers to the person as a 'he' (most probably referring to her deceased husband). However, I did not specify the gender of the person in this translation because the poem can easily take a more universal context.
---------------------------------------------
Personal notes:
This poem was published as part of the collection 'We moved next door' (2007).
Its themes, like in many of Kiki Dimoula's poems, involve memory, personal loss/absence and the experience of being alone. This experience can be painful, but endurable.
The poet may be addressing herself, or giving advice to her audience.
The vacant chair opposite to the poet is a metaphor for the memory or mental presence of an intimate other. Perhaps this person used to sit there with her/us (an actual loss), or perhaps this person was never there (a desired/imagined loss). Either way, the poet/us are alone at the table.
Every day the preservation of this memory/mental presence (a ritual) becomes harder, though the reasons for this are not clear. Is it because with age the poet's/our mental abilities are becoming weaker (and therefore the memory becomes heavier to hold), or is it because she is/we are increasingly hurting by this person's absence? The poet may be warning us that the person's absence will become more and more painful, or maybe she is being sarcastic about her own fixation with this ritual.
There is a hint of optimism as well. Is the ritual an act of holding on to a painful loss/desire, or is it a way to strengthen the resistance to this pain and make it endurable?
In Greek, Dimoula refers to the person as a 'he' (most probably referring to her deceased husband). However, I did not specify the gender of the person in this translation because the poem can easily take a more universal context.
