At Leonor's grave
In Soria, on 8 August 1912 Leonor Izquierdo y Machado, aged 18, diedafter three years of marriage to the Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875–1939).
Let Machado be your guide:
From the train see Sorian fields/ wherethe rocks seem to dream, sway pastSilver plated hills/ gray heights, cardinal rocks.Go in October when Over the bitter fields ...a sun of flame is cooling, though the earth is hardas baked brick. Don't wait for December whenThe North wind sweeps the stiffened landand Snow over the field and roads/is falling as over a grave.
When you arrive:
Wander where the Duero flows betweengray cliffs/ and phantoms of old gray oaks.In darkness stroll the alleys and lanes of Soriaso beautiful below the moon. In daylightGo climb Espino,/ upon high Espinowhere her earth lies. A hundred yearshave withered since Leonor died;a lettered marble rectangle seals her placein the graveyard behind the church.
The poet is your true guide:
Machado asks, Leonor, do you see the riverpoplars/ with their firm branches? but knowsthere can be no answer. Oh, what death brokewas a thread between us! His shadowed spiritgoes walking alone,/ sad, tired, pensive, old —as if he buried her yesterday. Treacherousthe almanacs of solace, courageousthose who dare to love, livelya poet's words on their flimsy, resilient page.
The Dog
Francisco de Goya, 'El Perro' (1819–23), Museo del Prado, Madrid.
When Miro visited the Prado for the last time,guided by a curator in honour of his fame,given a folding chair in deference to his age,he asked to see only El Perro and Las Meninasand sat staring for half an hour at each.
I've neglected The Dog, eager for flashingsteel with Goya's Marmelukes, two peasantsmired in muck clubbing each other to pulp,systematic slaughter in Tres de Mayo,Saturn tearing his child apart with his teeth;the late savageries of the pinturas negras,misanthropies of an old and deaf master.
I see only the dog's head, snout upturned,ears drawn back. Alone, forlorn, hopeless,it peers over the rim of unstable ground, perhapsquicksand. Abandoned on oblivion's brinkit invites me to tarry, heed its plight,feel the anguish of unassuageable loss — thendash for the bullets, bludgeons and blood.
Mr Hardy
Undergrowth dense, paths grown-over, filigreed gloomdrapes across the day — and dead leaves, stirredby fitful breezes, whisper like the turning of pages:
Know the forest, touch its pulse, study its ways, the habitsof its shy creatures. Surrender to its mysteries. Strangerscome and go. Observe them. They too have their place.
And if in some hidden glade you meet another