Stavros Tornes
FAREWELL ANATOLIA
Farewell Anatolia ... perhaps you may not want to know that you to me left a scar forever a scar like those in the primitive caves that survived in the ages of ages forever, Ahmet, and that will only be extinguished if when the earth will be consumed by the universe, Mehmet or when my body by the earth, Khalil . . . Goodbye. Then I was left alone, surrounded by your senses of your presence without your specific face without your light sweaty hands — left with nothing- crying as bureaucrats every night do betrayed by the Third International. 1973. . Year of cholera and amnesty. 'There are jobs for everyone. And one is promised to you. You must not forget that we are now able to go to the moon. There will be new jobs. Then ... there will be salary guaranteed for everyone reform or progress for all the people, and in a little further from now which has been guessed already socialism with a democratic face, of course ... or if you wish the one with the self-management and don't play it smart with suicide or revolution because we will set up new posts for them as well. I surrendered to them I stayed forever in the dried rivers of Calabria with the rounded stones. Work of sun and water of water and sun. Eyes eyes of the locals. Navigable rivers Of an endless hinterland. In the Palestinian revolution I am who I am present or past And what follows . . . for centuries or seconds I swim I run around the seas I fly I walk on earth I arrive Ali — Ambouleila — Mesir. In the certainty of our important meeting there are no dead because everyone is free to become what he wishes a bird, leaf, tear, wind, fog, love, star, God through our very intimate relationship.
From his film Farewell Anatolia (1975)
(Translated from the Greek by Panos Bosnakis)