If you never sensed in your
heart the holy solitude of a matador,
If you aren’t amazed by the
trees from which corks are made,
Nor either the sounds and
staccato hammering of gypsy flamenco,
Failing to make your blood
flow like a flooding Amazon,
Then go search and discover
the earth of life.
Dig in it, run it through
your fingers,
Get down on your knees and
smell it, taste it, sleep on it, it is one with your creator.
And question not the few
grains that discolor your shirt,
They are the badges of your
awakening.
For if you’ve never perceived
the unfocused past revelries of El Cid
(El Campeador)
Battling the Moors from
castle to castle in the dusty haze of a long Iberian afternoon.
And you unthinkingly ignored
Miles Davis’ blowing his woeful Soul of Spain.
While watching families
picking olives under the hot Andalucia
sun.
Then take time to turn around
and see where you’ve been.
Can you recall in history
where a handful of Conquistadors
Subdued thousands upon
thousands of indigenous peoples.
Go to your bed dreaming of
wine stomped by feminine feet in the granjas
de Barcelona.
Stroke horseflesh and
breathe-in the manly aroma of fine cured Cordoba
saddles
Or slide your fingers over a
pure silver hackamore or los estrebos.
It’s all faux beauty when you recall the horror of Civil War
Or Hemingway tossing green
bottles in Pamplona bistros with his
euroscum friends
Surely, you have mementos in
your repertoire?
A T-shirt, a ticket stub, a
cupie doll.
Wait…have you ever imagined
the claustrophobic vigilance
Of the village churches
shrouded with incense.
Or worse…the throbbing
tension of gritty separation
Between gentry and peasants
Generals, citizens, comrades
and clergy.
Granularity of descending
hierarchy
This, in all its sadness and
beauty, is Espana.
The pristine white villages
of wind blown Tarifa
With their windmills, that
grinds the sharp pods of grain.
And your feet can tap to
their whoosh…whoosh…
My god… Tarifa is on any good map!
(who gets to travel there
happenstance while, I must endure a nonporous wall of imagination?)
It’s there because for
centuries long-tailed kites have surfed in clear blue skies
And on some days, far off to
the south, you can see Africa and its mountains
Siroccos
foaming the skies from Sahara deserts and whence came the Moors
The sunsets and storm clouds
framed in black scudding heavens
Abandoned houses without
roofs, home to any whom would enter
(here I would rest as though
in a palace)
And rotting faded blue
fishing boats on the rocky beaches
(could I push one into the
water and learn to feed myself)
All this near Tarifa.
By now you surely sense what
this place must offer.
Wait again you vagabond…you
have not finished…
(I was a runaway child not
afraid of the dark)
You must go west to the open
market of Cadiz or Malaga
If only to sense the cool airs
from waters Atlanticio
Which sooth the swollen
utters of grazing cattle.
(animals had love, food and
shelter…many times I had none)
Where castanets click for your attention.
Proprietor’s harvest shouted
out over narrow cobbled calles
By the deep-throated, (like
four octaves of Yma Sumac ) "perfect-legato" voices of Portuguese vendors
More like Gregorian chants of
the Inquisition
Even louder than the
fishmonger,
Do not assail yourself
…instead hurry…go…break your chains.
(I was frequently a run-away,
always caught and returned...no questions asked)
Those noble sires of fruited
loins would that we still dwell in Tarifa
Its odors of ancient spices
lingering seductively in shops and homes
Like greetings from village
chroniclers.
Then those chaotically stacked
arco iris, in piled chests
And displayed arc-en-ciel mounds of fruits and garden
growth.
satiate
Harlot birds with croak-like
screeches and filthy pinions
Struggling to leap from their
canvas prisons de Goya.
If you can’t imagine all this
It will never do to sit down
with Don Quixote de la Mancha.
So say I… proconsul of
Brittany.
And today the windmills have
been replaced by turbines that go swhoosh…swhoosh…endlessly
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