September 2023
Author's Note: The world situation is somewhat depressing - politically as well as the earth crying out in pain (if we would only listen). Still, I am optimistic. I believe in my children and their children rescuing themselves from the mess we leave them. Poeting on, escaping into other times and other worlds.
Fall in the Vega de Chinchón, Madrid, Spain
Photo credit: Boehm
Coffee with milk, croissants. Djelabas.
The old man leering. Boys with shoe-shine boxes.
Miss, Señora, Madame, Mademoiselle, Frau, Fräulein, hier, ici,
buy, buy, buy, achetez. Dark, stark faces, grey beards.
Open hands. Eyes not begging, but demanding
their share of Northern Europe’s riches. ‘You rich.’
‘I your guide, show you.’ Pulls my sleeve. Young boys,
growing like weed at the side of cobble-stoned roads.
They suddenly fold away.
A ‘blue man’ passes.
Tall, loose-limbed, sun-lined,
the desert in his eyes,
indigo veil.
A donkey fills imaginary trottoirs with its load of twigs.
Balaak, balaak! Out of the way! Urine and cardamom,
musk and cinnamon. Sipping tea, sitting on carpets
piled high. One-hundred-and-forty Dirham, Señorita.
‘My family, you know, starving.’
A man carries 24 live chickens on a string.
Flew home with a young man
from Barcelona. My tidy office,
my blank computer screen.
The next meeting at ten.
Singing the Fall Song
When the earth prepares for the long sleep,
the green saps flow back into the heart
of their guardians, when we receive a consolation
prize of the world in flames of autumn,
of loving preparation for what is to come,
the leaves waiting for the storms
that will take them to make soft carpets of gold,
where the dogs find exciting scents
on spoors only they can follow,
where their humans become children again
reveling in the gift of winter coming.
©2023 Rose Mary Boehm