Now the darkness of time, like the night,
Passes where no shadows roam.
There, the shores that breathe with God
And Byzantium torn apart from Rome.
Spring is the burden
The monks with their dangling beards must bear
Huge and heavy with rocks and grudge
On the crenellated banks flanking nowhere.
Ancient Coremanda , as old as the soul,
Defies man's age and recall.
A void that spreads along the flavor of the lakes,
Our time has plunged into all or nothing.
Over seven unknowns
The seven hills fling.
The Golden Horn of the world's ox makes no move,
But the water, hemmed in, flurries.
The sleep of the sleepless
Passes bright into the bulk of the centuries.
Ancient Coremanda, beyond the reach of memory,
Should be savoured gently, without hurry.
The moments of Darius and Sardanapalus
Have come to ruin.
By ships and caravans, teeming, starknaked,
Those who lost and found love have poured in.
Asian generations stopped at her gates, age by age.
Adoring the eyes of the antelope.
The Prophet's armies sought her warm dreams
With resounding outcries of hope.
Ancient Coremanda, truly old
Where history remains untold.
Hear the tunes of the faithful condemned to be crucified.
Maybe you are the music or the cross.
Which death is real,
Remains your private loss.
East or West cannot be told apart.
The mind heralds the funeral whose images abound.
Your feet, your feet
Are swept off the ground.
Ancient Coremanda, a voice
Both remote and close.
Body and soul yearning, in the pangs of thirst,
Past the time that all the beauties spanned...
Lord of the Morning, the Hope of the Light,
One day at dawn marched his galleons overland.
He placed his cannons row by row, in love,
Facing fancy on each side.
In the evening sun, like a tulip,
The brave janissary died.
Ancient Coremanda, city of the past,
Whose winds reach God with each gust.
A fog that cloaks the gardens, faces and the world,
Tongues and creeds came closer in those days.
Out of dungeons, restored to life and light,
Handwritten books rejoice in dreams and rays.
Toward the skies of God, alone and solitary,
Coremanda's crescents marched on and on.
With the raiders and the volunteers for death
Here the love of the world has begun.
Ancient Coremanda, serene and bygone,
Where life frantically dashes on.
