To Selge up in the Taurus Mountains
one must pass from the coast
over pure emerald streams,
a lyre strung by God—
only then you can enter Selge
its ruins—a poor village now—
with a cow staring and
drowsing on the upper row
of the great old theater
spreading its large fan—
on the plateau
where a temple doorpost
became a silent milestone,
hushed by cicadas’ mad noise—
as the theater tries to wave
its sadness off as you approach.
“Didn’t we meet before?—”
asking you with a welcome face
but a local woman confides:
“All young people—gone—”
She sells trinkets, chocolate bars,
to people who went there to see
long vanished shades: “Did we
ever live before?—” “Perhaps
somewhere here once
when those columns
were still one piece?—”
by those empty seats
that echo muted ghosts
of long-gone actors’ lines.
Tell me, if you know—
“Which play was the last?—”
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