Streets of Salamanca

"Parrots, stars, and in addition the official sun and a brusque dampness brought out in me a meditative taste for the earth and whatever covered it, and the satisfactions of an old house in its bats..." – Neruda, from "Contradicted Communications"










Puente Romano

Night comes
and she settles down
(I am thankful)
slowly over the Puente Romano
where I am drawn
so much
like a walking ear
to music
spilling out of the doorways
of sunken taverns.
Night comes and I find myself
in love
with things only of age,
of the brittle
imperfections
of centuries' old
cobblestones and arches
that I imagine
assembled by the hands
of leathery Romans – wives
must wonder
at what happens
to we men,
that imagination,
how carved stones
turned to story boards
of times past
would have tantalized
us far beyond
the flesh of this time.
We walk inside
the glow
of the streetlamp
together,
the city in one hand,
night of Cervantes
in the other
and just as any love
it is disappearance
as always
that is the vice of man.
Rio Tomes,
spillway of silver
rocks and brick –
these are the trinkets
I might hold
of history
and stand as a fool
waiting
outside the cafe
at night
as the last light
clicks off inside
and she never
arrives
to open the wide
wooden door.