AUGUST 1976

PORPHYRO IN AKRON

GREETING the dawn

by Hart Crane

A shift of rubber workers presses down South Main.

With the stubborness of muddy water It dwindles at each cross-line

Until vou feel the weight of many cars, North-bound, and East and West, Absorbing and conveying weariness,Rumbling over the hills.

Akron, "high places,"-

A bunch of smoking hills

Among the rolling Ohio hills.

The dark-skinned Greeks grin at each other

In the streets and alleys.

The Greek grins and fights with the Swede,-

And the Fjords and the Aegean are remembered.

The plough, the sword,

The trowel-and the monkey wrench!

O City, your axles need not the oil of song.

I will whisper words to myself

And put them in my pockets.

I will go and pitch quoits with old men

In the dust of a road!

||

And some of them will be "Americans," Using the latest ice-box and buying Fords; And others--

I remember one Sunday noon,

Harry and I, "the gentlemen, 'seated around A table of raisin-jack and wine, our host Setting down a glass and saying, -

"One month-l go back rich.

I ride black horse... Have many sheep."

And his wife, like a mountain, coming in With four tiny black-eyed girls around her Twinkling like little Christmas trees.

And some Sunday fiddlers,

Roumanian business men,

Played ragtime and dances before the door,

And we overpayed them because we felt like it.

|||

Pull down the hotel counterpane

And hitch yourself up to your book.

"Full on this casement shown the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon..."

"Connais tu le pays...?"

Your mother sang that in a stuffy parlor

One summer day in a little town

Where you had started to grow.

And you were outside as soon as you

Could get away from the company

To find the only rose on the bush in the front yard.

But look up, Porphyro-your toes

Are ridiculously tapping

The spindles at the foot of the bed.

The stars are drowned in a slow rain,

And a hash of noises is slung up from the street.

You ought, really, to try to sleep,

Even though, in this town, poetry's a Bedroom occupation.

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(October 1921).