I.  MADRID, MAY 1998

1
In an alcove of the Real Jardín Botánico, cool rain 
comes down, drenching, restoring the earth      Lorca, 
I address this to you, in this centenary of your birth, 
while your beloved nation prepares to remember 
her murdered poet, her celebrant and guide, 
whose untamed words refused the bridle    whose words 
were green as sunflower leaves in August  

For you, Federico, this late elegy that wakes 
in the mother country where you lived      What is history, 
which forgets more than it remembers? Lorca, 
where is your grave and which patch of earth covers you?
which ocean of salt roses harbors your lost poems?

2
The beautiful luminous old and broken streets of Madrid
curve out in spokes from the wheels of the great plazas
In the shade of an almond tree, dear poet, I wait for you, 
but you do not appear      I wait for you at el Palacio Real, 
whose rooms have the grandeur of cathedrals    in the halls 
of the Prado    where Zurburán and Velázquez still speak
to the listening eye    in Plaza de la Cibeles where the goddess 
is charioted by lions

No, you are not there nor at the shrine to Spain’s unknown 
warriors      Your voice — torn from your throat by Falange bullets — 
is not heard in the shadow of monuments    though I hear it still
speaking of spirit and courage 



II.  CÓRDOBA: AN EMPTY TEMPLE


We needed a Jason or a murdered poet to navigate 
the inwound byways of Córdoba    to dodge the semi-blockaded 
hotels and mute desk clerks distracted by backed-up traffic 
We needed bilingual sonar to steer by    and a seer on each corner   
a guide with night vision in our obscured daylight    and radar 
for tombs      And so we entered the labyrinth of history 
whose doorways are expulsion and sorrow     

This is how we arrived at the Mesquita, that triumph of faith 
and ornateness    of vanities indulged    sacerdotal deceits
teleological vagaries      Lorca, you did not appear amid the tiers 
and painted arches, nor were you drifting on a raft 
on the rushing waters of the Guadalquiver, that murky river 
whose green-tipped current swept the past before it
as it flashed near the Roman bridge 

Dear poet, did you accompany us then as we retraced our steps 
and wandered into the city’s steamy encampment    along its flower-
festooned streets? Did you grow silent and contemplative
en La Calle des Judios where Sephardic melodies 
remembered to elevate themselves to the level of our hearts?  

Federico, did you stray with us along the gold-brown alleyways 
where each stone is a memorial tablet, a library of dialects and souls?  
Did you dream with us in the florid Alcázar and mourn with us 
in the empty Jerusalem of the one surviving synagogue?  
Was that you leaning against the shadow that was the missing ark, 
in whose absence only regret and the quietest of angers live?


III.  SEVILLE: FLAMENCO DANCER

The two male singers clapped and shattered
their vocal cords: they knew a life depends upon dying   
that a song can not be saved unless the singer 
buries it deep in his body    then draws it forth from his mouth     
We could see how they had stayed death’s hand with their lamenting
we could feel the music pulse in them    we could see how they stamped 
and savored every note    we could hear how the words to the song 
welled up in them    how each fractured note rose from the soles
of their feet    how they split each phrase into dark syllables and blood     
We could see the torn words lift from them    like bits of still-burning ash     
We thought they might die of their song    but then they grew quiet
and only the sob of guitars remained

O Sevilla, I loved you then    in that blazing decrescendo
I loved you then in the singers’ sudden dying      I loved you 
in that waterfall of darkly broken notes      I loved you in your theatre 
of black and crumpled silk      I loved you in the dancer who came swiftly forward    
as if he’d been pierced by your strings    as if he’d been torn from the throats 
of your dead singers    as if your poets had dressed him in their darkest 
and silkiest words      Ai, the guitarristas now trembled    they woke 
from their sleep    and their fingers repaired the strings that wished only 
to remain broken    and they drummed the silver frets    they caressed 
the Spanish cedar    and the cantores stepped forward to sing

Yes, the singers leaned forward    but the tune was black moonlight
and blood    for the dancer had found its ruined notes abandoned
and he slashed at the throat of the song      He glared like a god or an angel 
under a Gypsy moon      He splashed in the waves of the song
and the spume of his darkness was fire that lit the night with your words     
Yes, Lorca, I think he was dancing your words      I think his swift darkness 
was like your spirit when it danced — por España — on the sea of the living     
How dark    how black    were his eyes! How tall and lean he was!   
We thought the night had returned as a man    that flamenco was fleshly 
and human       Ai, the guitarristas broke every string! Ai, the cantores 
ripped the tongues from their mouths! and he, like a wave of black fire, 
kept on dancing


IV.  GRANADA

1
You wouldn’t leave Spain, your mother country
Spain, with all her deceits and vanities    Spain,
most devout and most cruel      You would not go
into exile    would not escape to France or America     
Another continent, even a Spanish one, was a planet 
where your songs could not live

You would not uproot yourself from España
for in this soil you had grown strong      It was here
that your words first came to you    like white doves
returning to their roost    it was here that the deep music 
of violence and love poured into you its bitter-sweetness 
Yes, Federico, Spain poured herself into you    flamenco
poured into you    Gypsy blood flowed into you    and death 
kissed your throat

Federico, you would not evict yourself from España 
though all the violins of Granada 
ceased their crying

2
Lorca, I couldn’t locate you on Sacromonte Hill but your spirit 
lived there: in Gypsy songs spilling from the doorways   
in bright clay pots filled with red and purple geraniums    in gacelas 
tendriling over stuccoed walls    washed white in the light 
of the early Spanish sun     

On this road up the mountain that wound along the edge   
that looked down into a calm green valley and across to the walls 
of the Alhambra, so quickly lost from view, spears of giant aloe 
and yucca reached skyward    and yellow and red cactus blossoms 
burst open in the growing warmth

I could not find you amid this extravagance of flowers and song, 
but I knew your words lived in every meter of simple and lofty beauty   
that your ghost leaned near to the sheer rim and peered over
that your vision climbed Sacromonte ahead of me    and led me on

3
We know it all now, how Spain murdered you: you were killed 
at Fuente Grande, called by the Arabs who built it, Ainadamar: 
the Fount of Tears      Until that moment, Federico, you were chained
to a fate that loved you, but then you were handcuffed to death

Now bubbles rise from the bottom of your fountain . . . they vanish
Nearby, en el barranco — on that sweep of barren land that scars 
the earth of Viznar — thousands were shot and buried    
but you were executed at the fountain of life and tears      
Near the bend in the road, Federico, the dead light poured down on you 
through half-broken pines      On a moonless August morning, 
the soil of Spain became forever stained with your loyal blood

4
No, Lorca, I could not find you in the centenary of your birth,
but silently I salute you, the murdered master of song: for your work 
that is as solid and richly detailed as a cathedral    for your delicate 
and nuanced sensibility    for your lines like flowing waves    sculpted 
from the true stone of the essential    for your honoring of the noble dead   
for the power of your vision and memory    for your witnessing   
and for the inexhaustible pulse of your yearning