Out of Time

On Board Ship

by C. P. Cavafy

It’s like him, of course,

this little pencil portrait.

 

Hurriedly sketched, on the ship’s deck,

the afternoon magical,

the Ionian Sea around us.

 

It’s like him. But I remember him as better looking.

He was sensitive almost to the point of illness,

and this highlighted his expression.

He appears to me better looking

now that my soul brings him back, out of Time.

 

Out of Time. All these things are from very long ago—

the sketch, the ship, the afternoon.

I love those last two lines.  So many things increasingly seem out of time, from very long ago . . . the sketch, the ship, the afternoon, and so much more unmentioned.