Recollections in Mid-Afternoon

Harold Rosenberg

The traveler who slew the dragon
                always came from the sun;
and this had meanings of women
and water, seeds, and rain.
In the North the traveler was Tristan.
He was paler. And because by profession
                the Northmen are pirates,
there are many ships in his story.
That traveler was brutal and sweet. He
spoke July in a language
                gayer than awnings;

he intoned the tender blue,
the winds, and the rocking fields.
His motion gilded the circle
that closes the western lands. The virgin
                saw on the ocean his shadow.
Perseus, all purple with blood and applause,
married, and learned the culture of the place.
The drums awoke to his coming-
incantations to the earth. Our lives
                fruit for him; violence
the prime fruit, pomegranate by plain pear, we
and our heroes ripened in his splendor.
He darkened to midnight through Egypt,
drawing the River behind him
                to Hades. The crocodiles
hid from the heat in the hollows;
mice were born of the marshes.