HERODOTUS IN EGYPT REMEMBERS DELOS by Ruth Padel
The ground verdigris, fluffy with young mosquitoes. Waters as sacred as these, as fatted with reeds. Bronze palm planted to Sun. Lizards, Nile alligators, hindquarters rolling on granite sphinx-chippings. Air salted with confident brown larks, Travelling, you remember (mind upturning these foreign priests, finding the causes) that stamen-summit: white long unbloody altar, giddy blues under you, calyx of bronze flat islands unfolding, blind.
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