August, 2022


He walks near the Huerta de San Vicente of Granada, his soul not seen by passing mopeds. He does not recognize the apartments that block his old views of the Alhambra. Home is death’s first love, he tells himself. He watches the child hide behind the orange tree until his brother is out of sight. The poet is held against his will by the Cypress tree he planted 86 years ago. Home to the balcony that still holds him high above Andalusian earth.

The fountains of the huerta teach young girls how to kiss for the first time. I used to know all the fountains’ secrets by heart and could recite them to janitors in Harlem unafraid of death!

I will smell the Cuban fields of sugar cane in my father’s hair! I will see the sorrow in mother’s eyes. She does not know, but she suspects. She cooks habas con jamon for this homecoming.

Home to the dried fruit stands outside the Cathedral where guitars of the cante jondo remind me the great lover I will never meet still waits for me on the shore of the Mediterranean. Memories of the last night train from Madrid to Granada in August of 1936, the bulls in the fields outside the train window did not move in the darkness.

Home to gitana children’s songs and Spain’s will be done.

The olive groves are impatient. They want me to read to them for the first time in 86 years.