Across the depopulated valley
cypresses twist into treble clefs.
The olive trees are semi-breves
as a motet rises from stone
swelling with the bloat of figs
and flyblown pomegranates.
Close your eyes and listen
to the tremolo lifting on wings
at midday through the Earth’s
broken cathedral into shadows
where the wild pigs doze
in scented chapels of cork oak.
How this emptiness echoes
with a voice not unlike your own
in one ever-diminishing drift
until a far-off door slams shut.
The rabbit hunters have come
with twelve bore shotguns
just for the idle sport of it
and the lust that cocks the finger.
But they are a month out of season.
Their flat-bed truck will leave
unbloodied to load with charcoal
and frozen steaks from Carrefour.
Stay, for dusk to fill the ditches
as the Tramuntana stirs the woods
with purple vespers and your ode
finds its place of infinite shade.
A Siurana Cantata
(Mark Fidis)
Tramunta (Catalan): the northerly wind from the Pyrenees still blamed for madness.