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Ritsos, Yiannis – Selected Poems - Emergence
Identifier
029406
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
From Selected Poems, tr. N. Stangos (1974)
Emergence
He couldn't have been more than eighteen
He took off all his clothes,
as if playing, but obeying something
we too could recognize. He climbed up the rock
maybe to make himself look taller. And maybe he thought
that height concealed nudity. It wasn't necessary.
Who cares about height at such moments?
There was a pink stripe about his waist -
a mark from his tight belt He seemed
even more naked with that. And then, with a superb jump,
despite the January cold he dived into the sea.
Soon he reappeared holding the cross up high.