Cities

I. Along Paseig de Gràcia, the swell and flow of feet surge, quick-silvered, a thousand shoes strike stones. The Tower of Babel has sprung to life, incarnated, a mosaic of tongues.

II. Saint Eulalia encased in a glass box, silenced within a thoughtless act of reverence, a thousand tears of blood fall. The white dove hovers invisible. The dragon licks his sticky maw.

III. Approaching Midsummer, day slow to leave and night, slow to come. They tease one another, a thousand veils, gold upon blue, magenta, violet. In no hurry. No hurry at all.

IV. La Sagrada Familia, westward, autumn ablaze, ambush of splintered glass in the midst of a summer gone mad. Peace bathes on the eastern wall, a springtime of sea greens, a winter of balsam blues.

V. Barcelona, city of unfinished business, laughs at my resolve to capture it. Leaving empty handed, La Basilica Galèria, House of a Thousand Perfumes, vanishes. Scent of Voyage eludes, promises abandoned.

VI. Girona, city of a thousand sieges throws our shadows into disarray, cobblestones take flight. Relentless heat pursues us; cathedral doors close against us. Tourists, refugees, balance on nails of tolerance.

VII. Barcelona strums the thousand strings of its guitar, limpid fingers, glide and glimmer. Madrid grabs it by the neck, strings strike down upon the bridge. The serenades of Spain.

VIII. A thousand summer suns blaze, out of time, inquisitional, flesh burning, our sweat shed like holy water on Toledo. Long ago, naked through midwinter morning frosts, muted anguish echoes still.

IX. At Taberna El Fontáne, a table, two chairs, silent witnesses; one thousand cervesas, one thousand stories. Today a mother and child, yesterday two strangers. Tomorrow a man, a woman, seeking.

X. Kilometre Zero marks the place and time, journey’s end. The musicians cast their bows upon the strings, Vivaldi’s Autumn wreathes the fading summer like the Last Post.