The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 2. …to a Seventeen-year-old Boy on the Beach…

I read this and was astonished at the year it was written. It’s a description of a timeless experience. This poet could have come to the park with me on any Saturday afternoon. 

17 hours ago, Parker Owens said:

I read this and was astonished at the year it was written. It’s a description of a timeless experience. This poet could have come to the park with me on any Saturday afternoon. 

Thanks, Parker. This is all part of the time-machine nature of poetry mentioned in the Prologue. Even Yonge's translation dates to the 1840s or 50s

The joy and the ache of seeing such beauty captured perfectly.

7 minutes ago, starboardtack said:

The joy and the ache of seeing such beauty captured perfectly.

Thanks, starboardtack, I couldn't agree more

We've all seen these situations unfold, and sometimes you think back to your childhood. This captures nostalgia and innocence in such a sad, but beautiful way. Thanks for the addition. The idea is to treat myself every morning to a neat poem  

5 hours ago, D.K. Daniels said:

We've all seen these situations unfold, and sometimes you think back to your childhood. This captures nostalgia and innocence in such a sad, but beautiful way. Thanks for the addition. The idea is to treat myself every morning to a neat poem  

A wonderful idea! I'm glad I'm far along now and have lots and lots for you to go through in the Mirror.

Just reading the poem above again (for the millionth time; can't get enough of it), I'm struck once more how wonderfully free of homophobia Yonge's 1850s translation of Athenaeus is. Along these lines, not showing an anti-gay bias in translating an ancient Greek's writing, Yonge provides the most neutral (if not Gay-positive) rendering of this work yet. In other words, no "modern" translator is as honest as he is 

This one came to my attention due to the recent comment by D.K. Daniels.  This, I completely understand and relate to.  Clearly, I need to spend some time reading this "book" from cover to cover.

As I read, I envisioned a twentieth-century sand-volleyball game.  Like Parker, I was astounded by the date.  To abuse a common expression, everything new is old again.

2 minutes ago, Backwoods Boy said:

This one came to my attention due to the recent comment by D.K. Daniels.  This, I completely understand and relate to.  Clearly, I need to spend some time reading this "book" from cover to cover.

As I read, I envisioned a twentieth-century sand-volleyball game.  Like Parker, I was astounded by the date.  To abuse a common expression, everything new is old again.

Volleyball! Yes, it's exactly what I see each time I read this poem. It's an incredible snapshot, and as someone much wiser than I am, once said: "Poetry is the best time machine humanity is likely to ever have." Dates be damned! It's what lives in our heats as humans that matters

(And, as for Athenseus' time machine, I believe this is the only poem by Demoxenus to have survived to the modern day . . . )