I hazarded a finding on a matter of fashion

   
   big mistake,
   forgot about
   glass houses

            There is one other thing that is lamentable,

            most lamentable. This is when certain great

            ships pass by, festooned with coral and masts

            of ebony, with great white and red flags un-

            furled, ladened with treasures, which never

            even approach the harbour since either all of

            their cargo is banned or the harbour is not

            deep enough to receive them. And they contin-

            ue on their way. A tail wind fills the sails

            of silk and the sun illumines the glory of 

            their golden prows, and they sail off gently

            and majestically, distancing themselves from

            us and our shallow port for ever.

  As in the case, I'd

  suppose, of anyone

  who comes here more

  than once, I some-

  times see so clear-

  ly, it's those who

  dredge the harbour

  who stay on. This

  poet's harbour was

  Alexandria, and he

  made it everyone's.

  He was Alexandrian.

Constantine P. Cavafy
Selected Prose Works
  The Ships
  prose poem
  fragment
  1895/96
Peter Jeffreys
  editor and translator
University of Michigan Press, 2010©