Kazantza’kis, Agonistis’
By: Jim Zaferopolos
Somewhere in Kazantzakis’ work—I can’t now quite remember where, I read “In climbed the mountain to look upon the face of God; but, when I got to the top, the face I saw there was my own!” [paraphrased]
Weed scraggle in the scree, the dross
Of life, the man-made slime and rubble
Of a life-time’s discards, O, mine uncle,
Mountain would have cluttered you,
Had you not mind and fortitude enough
To overcome the craggy edifice of fear To
frailty of the human sensibility, to
Clamber up over the refuse
That has clogged your feet in clay,
As you have strained to push the rock
Of up the slope of natural resistance, as
Our poor progenitor was cursed by
Jealous gods forever-more to do.
Straining my very soul, I say, help me,
Dear Uncle, to reprise your noble effort
In my life; give me a hand to rise,
By my long-loving aim deep regard
For you, as, having failed to emulate
Your deed and thought a hundred times
And more, I may remain, still, duty-bound,
Condemned, to achieve the peak from which
My trusting spirit might alight into the
Holy void, which, lost at birth, I may,
With you, forever more regain.
But, as I reach your summit,
I must slip each time,
And let the rock roll
To the piedmont, and
I have to start again,
Lugubriously,
To push
That rock
Up-hill once more.
Uncle, I never shall give up
The struggle to ascend.
For, every time
I push the rock over
Your cragged face,
I do believe that
I have reached one
Incremental
Inch closer To you.
I leave a pebble chipped from
y flint-hewn soul
The sudden spark that
Sets a conflagration
To consume what you
Believe to be
The substance of
Your massive mind and
Thought which from
The ashes rises like
A fledgling, and
Compels me with
A father’s love to
Put you on my back, and to
Begin the
Slow ascent again.
Jim Zaferopolos is the immigrant son of an Asia Minor Greek refugee family who was born in 1946 in the North Aegean seaport city of Kava’la. His father died during th Greek Civil War which followed on the heels of World
War II. His mother and he immigrated to America in 1955, where he’s resided ever since. He has taught college
history at the now-defunct Myers University--a small downtown Cleveland school for thirty years. He is married
to a retired eiementary school teacher. They fave children (married, all of them) and are ther doting
grandparents of a trove of grandkids (to the number of 16 (one great great on the way). Jim has been writing poetry throughout his life, but only recently has found the courage to begin their publication.