The
Glory of Spain: Two New Poems
By Seymour Mayne
This past November I was fortunate to spend a week in Córdoba again,
staying within an orange's throw of the Mezquita-Cathedral. The
crowded but colourful streets of the old city are filled with shops,
many of them displaying the leather goods for which the city is
justly famous. As I was taking my time wandering one afternoon,
the poem "Córdoba" flew into my awareness and I quickly drafted
it at a nearby cafe.
"Above the Puerta" is another poem given to me, so to speak,
on another walk, this time alongside the Juderia, the old Jewish
quarter, where one of the gates of the old walls opens to a small
but busy square. The flocks of birds that late afternoon seemed
to be sending some kind of message by way of the code of their flying
and diving, and the late afternoon sun only highlighted their metaphors
in flight.
Córdoba is best savoured in the late afternoons and early evenings
when the light and the quiet of the narrow streets enhance the Andalusian
languor and urge the traveler to sink further into his or her wondering--and
wandering--thoughts.
CORDOBA
There is a smell of leather
in Córdoba,
of tanned hide.
Even the walls
and squares
are stricken
as if with the slow
strokes of a tanner.
They are thickened
by each blow
of submission
without word, past
glory preserved.
Hold Córdoba snugly
under
your arm,
hold her close
full as she
is,
a seasoned satchel
bleached and baked
by the impassive
but crafty sun.
ABOVE THE PUERTA
for Bernd Dietz
Scattering
above the
Puerta
de
Almodóvar
loud
formations
of
sparrows
rise
over the palms,
break
into arcs,
wheel back again
towards the
gravity
of
the tower.
Why
should they
guide
themselves
to our feet
or plentiful
crumbs?
They are high,
higher now
than
the pacific sun
which earlier
nudged them into
the
thousand and one
perches and shelters
by
the gardens
along
the ancient walls.
Afire
with flight
they
pepper
the air,
careening buckshot
aimed
at the ceramic
blue.
They shatter the peace
with yet
another
lunge
before night
settles
them into
the
armistice of sleep.
Córdoba
November 2000
Travelterrific is honoured to feature the work of Seymour Mayne.
Seymour Mayne, Professor of Canadian Literature at the
University of Ottawa, is the author, editor or translator of more
than forty books and monographs. His most recent collections include
Carbon Filter (Mosaic Press), and a selection of humourous
and satirical poetry, Light Industry (Mosaic Press).
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