In these dark rooms where I live out empty days, I circle back and forth trying to find the windows. It will be a great relief when a window opens. But the windows are not there to be found— or at least I cannot find them. And perhaps it is better that I don’t find them. Perhaps the light will prove another tyranny. Who knows what new things it will expose?
Reprinted from C.P. CAVAFY: Collected Poems Revised Edition, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, edited by George Savidis. Translation copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Princeton University Press. For reuse of these translations, please contact Princeton University Press.
The Canon