It’s getting dark now.
Time for Messiahs?
Night.
Black winged angels descending?
A taste of lemons.
The scent of rosemary.
Mountain paths like a twist of thick rope.
Village streets braid between the houses
Knotting in shaded alleys.
And like a buckle clasp the azure sky tight
to the ancient buildings.
I sit on a wooden veranda in a Spanish
hotel perched above the market
I look down on a valley view
while drinking something cool
In a glass Ice clinks like frozen dice
The sky like a vast courtyard that teems
and froths with a busy crowd turning away
from the last sharp javelins of evening sunlight
piercing downwards.
Hurrying home to close the shutters and
tuck away the tiredness and the gossip
the villagers scatter.
There’s a pure- white cloud wedged
between the church spire and the fir pines
bent double as if trudging up the mountain side.
I think of you and I wish you were stepping
through the ornamental doorway now
My love ‘when all else fell away from me…’
Your red hair like warm paint spilling
from an artist’s jar.
Your blue eyes are twin film stars
appearing in my every dream.
Holding me enthralled until I awake
When I hold you in my arms I know that we can
outlive the day and float to another place where
there’s music that sings like Machado’s verse….
As if words were a fire alight with pieces of mosaic
“Yo voy soñando caminos
de la tarde. ¡Las colinas
doradas, los verdes pinos,
las polvorientas encinas!…
Last night while I was sleeping
I dreamed, blessed illusion!
that a fountain flowed
inside my heart”
If moments are to be remembered then I wear
this memory like a medal and award us the sunset
for being two lovers together always.
Reading Machado while a wicker basket of stars is
emptied into the blackest well of darkness.
This our night in Andalusia.
.
Malcolm Paul
Picture Nick Victor
.