Untitled

You always celebrated Homer and his breed.
A squirrel — spasmodic circumflex —
climbed higher and higher up a giant tree
and you watched it
laughing.
Our life is always a separation
and a more difficult presence.
The reference to Homer, an ever-present figure in Seferis’s poetry,
brings to mind a reported story about the poet after a reading
he gave at Princeton:
student: Mr. Seferis, who is the world’s greatest poet?
seferis: Homer, my boy, Homer!
Seferis’s response expresses his firm belief in the continuity and
contemporary relevance of the Hellenic tradition, as well as his
view of his own position within it.
The manuscripts of Cheirographo Okt. ’68 and “Letter to Rex
Warner,” as well as extensive correspondence and other materials
relating to George Seferis in America, are housed in the Department
of Rare Books and Special Collections, Firestone Library.
They were recently donated to the Program in Hellenic Studies
and the Library by the family of the poet, his widow Maro Seferis
and his stepdaughter Anna Londou, as an acknowledgement of
Princeton’s honoring of the poet’s work and of the University’s
support for the study of modern Greek literature, an international
literature that is now firmly established in the English-speaking
world.
351