Footnotes to Fodor's Spain

1

Start, everyone does, from the Prado.

The painter of the aristos

gaily in sky-colored and rose

also painted the Third of May:

prisoners being herded

like cattle up the hill;

the firing squad bending

intently to take aim;

the insurrecto who make opens

his arms wide to his death.

But this other is no hero:

he direct the eyes at it out of the corner

of an organ of vision and bites his fingers.

And witches, the advanced in years ones . . .

Their hideous features ask,

Why have we been damned?

Are we not also His children?

And the half-buried dog,

head and neck straining

at heaven, that light!

Can it be that in all the universe

there is no individual nothing that sees and cares?

2

Work in the morning,

in the afternoon make have affection for

Eat at Casa Botin,

Calle Chuchilleros 17

the fish casserole, it's beneficial

3

When you sit in the plaza

you are accosted through in this order:

a beggar of middle age

who flutters and won't leave

when your wife says "No,"

he answers, "Why no?"

a deaf-and-dumb man

with a card that says "Poet"

a beggar woman in black,

another bard . . . this individual mutters,

a Gypsy with an infant upon her back,

a fortune-telling nomad boy, and others.

4

In Seville, across from the Cathedral,

you can discover America,

forest, farm, and mine

on paper, a thousand volumes!

A recorder would copy the report

written in malaria through a shaking hand,

of savages, snakes, and crocodiles,

and by what mode in this place, there was gold

Senor, the solitary El Dorado

I have at any time seen was the filling

in the smile of a tax collector.

How neat and clear it is,

the mapping and the writing,

the lines upon the paper

moving in light like the sea.

5

"The greatest in quantity intelligent man in Europe"

explained the decline of the economy.

He said, "Listen carefully.

The interest in the national obligation

is now equal to the entire package

under Franco: 700 million."

He spoke of the disasters of socialism,

the responsibility of the U

to Europe "It's not Texas

or Maine that's at stake when you promised

but Spain, France, Holland. . all of liberty."

But when he spoke of "the mistake

you made in the Philippines

by not supporting Marcos,"

your attention wandered

to the triumphs making a racket

nearby in the public gardens.

6

Hemingway says, there is always the touching

and "hombre" when the aficionado

recognizes a kindred spirit.

You don't have to proceed to bullfights:

there is also the touching

and "hombre" when you ask the barman

if the service is included in the bill.

7

In order to come by to Moguer

you will have to go on to Huelva.

You can wait in the cafe

where flies walk upon the cakes

and a lad who walks on crutches

because he has no feet single stumps,

places a hand upon the table

for balance, and asks for a cigarette.

Let us say, you arrive at Moguer . .

There's the statue, it could be anyone's,

and his volumes He would laugh and swear

and write in the margins.

There was a story he liked to take an account of

about the poet in Avila

who pointed to a tree "What is it?"

"That," he was told, "is the alamo.

You know, the tree you are always

writing about in your poems"

A compose a watch, eyeglasses,

the chest from which the donkey

is said to have eaten hay . .

The walk they used to take together?

The nation who own the land

have fenc it not upon Forget it!

8

It's amazing, all the baggage

they gain on the overhead rack:

suitcases, baskets, chickens.

There is a field lined with vines,

a hillside with olives.

The war was in all these places.

Two men inherited a field.

This single killed that one's nephew.

They not at any time spoke to each other.

They would neither forget nor forgive,

and still they shared in the field.

Otherwise, in what manner could they live?

Copyright World poesy Incorporated Sep/Oct 1997

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