BACK TO EUROPA
Back to Europa
after a Christ's life:
July Fourth weekend
1971
to 2004
I probably flew
over Morrison
while he was dying in
Paris
Athens to New York City ,
nonstop.
The clouds are
rolling in,
crawling up
the mountain,
breaking the
heat wave?
There has been
a heat wave
and it's 64 degrees F
at 10 am,
July 3, 2004
not bad,
if you can get it.
The internet café
in this village of Bubion
took a week's vacation
without telling anyone,
except for me,
after I inquired
during the first day
of stoppage,
knocking on the
ancient
wooden door
that must be
at least
200 years old.
At the café
resides the town's
neatest dog,
Nolo,
a friendly
perro
who followed me home
by scent
the first time
I met him.
Finches, sparrows
and other bug chasers
circle and dart
in the blue, blue sky:
I still haven't
seen an eagle or a hawk,
but the little birds
wake me
in the mornings.
My writing table
overlooks my patio
which overlooks
4,000 feet of mountains;
perhaps the best time
is at night,
two lights only
from two houses
on the mountain to the right,
no lights from no houses
on the mountain to the left,
but there is the smooth flow
of taillights
and headlights
on the Bubion to Pampaneira
mountain road
reminding me of
mountain traffic on Crete ,
twisting, twisting, twisting
I will stay right
where I am,
thank you,
except for walks
to Capileira,
it's 140 meters higher,
and cooler,
anyway.
I may desire
this heat
in the winter.
The steps to this
casita blanca
may be hard to
negotiate with snow
they are difficult enough
now,
eclipsing the
Bubion to Capileira
trek
two days ago.
The clouds
are bringing
the smell
of roses and other
flowers,
or is that a
woman's perfume?
At 10:50 am
the clouds have
arrived en masse,
my head is
in the clouds,
mi cabeza esta
en las nubes.
Two mujeres
and one hombre
they walked
three roads,
uphill.
Perhaps they were children
during the Civil War;
they left to
ecape Death,
and now,
Viejos,
return to their childhoods
amidst wild flores .
We speak apolitically,
muy bonita flores ,
I say.
Si,
the oldest one says,
bunches of flowers in one hand.
The mountains here
are alive
in the day and night;
it is life
as many of us
left it
decades ago.
It is life
screaming
let me be seen,
screaming
cante jondo,
let me be seen.
Later,
the stars at night
look like lights
on the mountains,
but they are not lights
on the mountains,
they are stars
in the skies,
they look like lights,
but they are not,
they are
estrellas
en la noche.
From these mountains,
and the melting snows,
flows
the cleanest and
freshest and coldest
water,
and it is
everywhere,
everywhere:
at fountains
in villages and the country
where you can refresh
yourself on the hottest afternoon;
the tap water
is the best
since Salzburg,
and may be better.
I left the path
from Bubion to Pampaneira
in this Poqueira ravine,
pushing through blackberry bushes,
bloodying my knee on thorns,
to reach a
waterfall
beneath shade trees:
I had seen
the water in Bubion
rushing as fast
as I had ever seen.
Here, downstream,
it was a torrent
the noise had
attracted me
to the spot.
Sitting on a rock
near the waterfall,
I watched and listened,
fascinated,
the roar
of the whitewater
was all that
could be heard.
The water also
brought coolness,
as it does in these mountains,
and I stayed there
for twenty minutes or longer.
I left carefully
a wrong step
on the rocky slopes
surrounding the torrent
would have sent me into it.
The sparrows
continue
to talk and hop
and then I read
Kazantzakis speaking of
sparrows breaking
your heart.
It is still cool.
it began with a heat wave
96 in the shade.
Now it is
cool
afternoons and evenings
and mornings
your toes cold
on the tile floor.
Despues cuatro semanas,
I see my hawks, or eagles,
high overhead,
above my patio,
circling and hunting.
The next day
I see the pair again,
flying lower so I can
see
their white colors,
maybe they are the
Spanish Imperial Eagles
I have read about.
Radio Nacional Espana
Classical:
may be the best
classical station
I have heard
in my life
(and that includes you, KDIF,
back in San Francisco
in the old days
before
insufferable radio commercials
that station must now play,
if it still exists,
and you,
Radio France ).
RNE broadcast
live
from the Bayreuth Festival
a week
of Wagner,
including The Ring,
in eight hour stretches
with intermissions.
RAI Italy and others
could only handle a
dos y media ora
piece.
The announcer
calls the audience,
amigos.
Si, nosotros
estamos
Amigos en Arte,
Amigos en Arte.
The coolness
went and came again,
August Fourth:
10:30 am 66 degrees F.
August Fourth:
1:55 pm 74 degrees F.
The light bursts into the eyes
each day here
from about
four pm to eight pm;
this light is intense.
This intense light
could kill.
I drank from the
grandparents' coffee cup
as I awoke today;
their nail-spike
stands on my mantle,
reminding me of
nails
I saw fashioned
in Oberwesel, Germany
at a Medieval festival
in 1986.
The nails are probably
from the same time:
the time of the ancient,
heavy dark doors
set into the
white plastered houses
throughout this village of
Bubion.
I am staying away from
Poqueira kid.
I wasn't here a week
when I saw a trailer
of too silent
brown and white
kid goats
going to market.
I will pass on the goat,
thank you.
Here
they pour extra virgin
olive oil on bread
as if the oil
were honey
beautiful golden colored
olive oil
from Cordoba
where the Spanish heat
continues on this
sixth day of August
far below these
Sierra Nevada mountains.
Last night I listened
to Thelonious
on the Bubion-bought
Philips micro stereo:
that early 1940s
Monk fits here:
the acoustics of this house,
and whatever else?
Soon I will return to the
Casa Lucia bodega
in Capileira,
where I found five-year old
Alpujarras oloroso vino
aging in huge barrels.
Next time
I will try
the Malaga Dulce
they say Shakespeare
loved this wine.
Later,
I am sitting
beneath
the corn
and trees
with grasses bending
in a cool breeze,
listening to a
Ravel Quartet
on RNE.
They started
the fireworks
in Pampaneira
for Saint's Day
(in Pamplona
the annual July festival
is in honor of San Firmin)
I saw the plumes
of smoke
rising
after hearing
what sounded like
cannon fire.
Those lines
on the distant mountains
are firebreaks
I learned,
not ancient roads
extraterrestrial
or terrestrial.
A quarter hour later,
mas or meno,
I am still
watching
the grasses bend
near the plateau
where I have seen
wild boar and mountain goat
droppings.
I have to come here
some morning at three am
and see
what I see.
I am writing lines
on the trees'
shadows
on paper.
Otherwordly, it is.
Shadows on
lined paper
before coughing
punctuates Ravel.
A couple just
walked by,
rough looking
local country folks,
not tourists
I give thanks.
I wrote 20 years
ago
we are all
tourists.
That assessment
is becoming
alarmingly true.
I just looked
down 100 feet
to three kid goats
and two adults,
grazing and resting.
The baby goats
as one menu
read,
look, and move, like
dogs or cats.
A regular
family outing
this is:
Beethoven would love them
and this bucolic scene.
Yes, I will try
to stay away
from kid goat.
The next day:
the ravine rattles
with bomb-like
fireworks
these are not sky-pretty
delights:
these are thunderous
explosions.
They could be
the cannons of
King Philip IV
who reigned
when Spain
ruled Napoli ,
Sicilia and Milano.
So, thanks to Nikos,
I am back in Europa again.
Thanks to Nikos,
I am alive.
Nikos would love
these mountains.
I watch the sun set
behind the same mountain
every night,
the palomas blancas
then flying
from the church
to my roof.
I do owe my life
to Kazantzakis,
Helen.
He was a friend,
indeed.
I went to Crete ,
at my request,
because of your husband;
otherwise, I learned
after my asking,
it would have been
Vietnam,
where I would
have probably found
no bueno suerte.
I visited Nikos'
grave in Iraklion often
for two years:
I hope for nothing,
I fear nothing,
I am free,
is how the marker reads
no mention of name
or date of birth or death.
These mountains
are like the mountains
that frame
his rocky burial ground.
Yassu, Nikos,
and,
Efkaristo.
When I feed
the sparrows,
I will thank you,
when I see
the Alpujarras Dance
that appears Cretan,
I will thank you,
for the rest
of my life,
wherever I may be,
let me remember
to thank you
Yassu, Nikos,
and,
Efkaristo Parapoli.