Yannis Ritsos - Poems, Selected Books, Volume V
by libroslibertad
How did a man who was taken away from his family and friends, from his job, business, craft, from the security of dwelling in a place which one calls home, react to such persecution, how did he see the guards-soldiers who stand between him and his free steps on the soil, how did he feel for the officers who interrogated him, for the army protocol that governed his life for a few years in prison, how such a man dealt with such a calamity and remained sane? How did he manage to still look at life optimistically, under the duress of such an imprisonment? how did he sleep at night, knowing that his family missed him and that his daughter grew away from her exiled father? How did he apply himself, and how did he keep his cool and not crack or attack any of the soldiers who guarded him? How did he endure the army protocol that controlled his movements day in and day out?
The answer to such questions lies in fathoming how a man deals with the enmity and by chance slaps on the hand that extends further than meant and how he maintained his humanness against the odds of prison life and all the disparities, oddities and indignation that those entrails.
