Youth Stares at Minoan Sunset

On the lap of the mountain meadow, At the break of the Cretan cliff-quarry where Venetians had once sawed their stone, soft Nag of surf far below foot, he Stares seaward the distance to sunset.

The sky is rose-hearted, immense, undisturbed. In that light the youth's form is black, without motion, And birds, gull nor other, have no transaction In the inflamed emptiness of sky. Mountainward No bird cries. We called once, But we were too far, too far.

Molten and massy, of its own weight flattened, The sun accelerates downward, the sea, From general slate-blue, flaming upward. Contact is made at the horizon line.

On that line, one instant, one only, The great coin, flame-massy and with The frail human figure thereon minted black, Balances. Suddenly is gone. A gull Defiles at last the emptiness of air.

We are closer now. The black Silhouette, yet small, stares seaward. To our cry It does not turn. Later, It will, and turning, see us with a slow And pitying happiness of recognition born of A knowledge we do not yet have. Or have forgotten.

He spreads his arms to the sky as though he loves it--and us.

He is so young.

Robert Penn Warren, "Now and Then: Poems 1976-1978"
Special thanks to George for contributing this piece.