Bucharesti (Winter)

A dry drab Warsaw-pact sky, Roumania as evolution--the year is 1945. A single suitcase, Gara de Nord. The only ticket available. Basarab--no--more Beregovsky's Khasene, the one with the newlyweds, their serious faces, veiled smiles, from sometime before the war. Now just a suitcase--quality luggage, on Lars' recommendation. But also, painting as a kind of reliving...first Portbou, the Hotel de Francia, steep cliffs to the sea, early autumn light. The Angel of History, looking back. But no, this is Bucharest, the Gara de Nord, a maze of tracks swerving urgently to the left, power stanchions, muted sky. Just the lights of one monstruous hotel parked far in the distance, poplar trees, even, almost green...

De Mi Abuela

No hay quien pueda, no hay quien pueda,con la gente marinera.
Marinera, pescadora, no hay quien pueda,por ahora.
Si te quieres casar con las chicas de aquí, tienes que ir a buscar capital a Madrid, capital a Madrid, capital a Madrid,
si te quieres casar con las chicas de aquí.

Darkened rooms in late summer, heavy wooden blinds to hold out the light. Los Porteños buscan...buscan...pero buscan a qué? Romancero. Quiet tree-lined streets, cobble stones and gray walls...balcony above. Figure half-hidden behind white curtains. Si te quieres casar...

Pasqua

White doves, just under the eaves, on Miramar. Yerushalayim, also just this time. Small window in a tiny room, opening to courtyard below. Calling before dawn, hilltop to hilltop, morning to come. Of that place--embedded, if a song could be so. Awakening, rather. Sound of muezzin, from somewhere far off, a tower on another hill...also of the place. And a lion's roar, in the darkness as well--from the old British fort, on yet another hill... All together, morning light...

Rock Dove

Rock Dove--early morning shadows outside a New York window, 9th or 10th floor, Zette's, in the garment district, not far from Port Authority Terminal. Winter light--that particular cold sun-filled brilliance. Moving along a ledge, just outside the frosted glass, no thoughts at first--only an awareness of other living beings. Everything alive. On a street corner in Oakland, a few years later, 14th and Broadway, in the shadow of the Pelli tower, late afternoon, veiled California sun... Life of the pigeon--life of anyone. Wet feathers in wet evening rain. Sound of cars and cabs, whoosh of water on glossed pavement. Annonymous accomodation. What would it be like to be gone?

Red Sparrow

Da zdrastvouye sotzialisticheskaya revolyutziya...or something about like that... All those case endings, armored trains. Trotsky in the snow--Siberia, sometime in winter, maybe 1919. At the end of a long season, just before Passover...today, that is, a possibility, again, this becoming. To Tom, esta manana: Clifford Still, the new museum in Denver, to be devoted solely to his work. "Like Robinson Jeffers, but without the poems..."

That's not the right note. Wander rather into sweetness--touch and accomodation. The bird is on the branch--his eyes are on the sparrow...

Calypso....

Pajaro de Noche

Lone bird on a lone branch. Evening sky...run of dark clouds coming in off the bay, light of the first few stars...

Pajaro de Noche. La golondrina. A swallow (have to check), appearing again on the same afternoon in a tango as sung by Charlo. From Buenos Aires, in 1935--after the passing of Carlos Gardel. Recuerdos de la Pampa, su barrio propio--Avellaneda, San Telmo, Constitución. With trenches and foxholes carved by nineteen-year-old recruits...los Rojos y los Azules--1961--two sides of the same force, marching on parallel streets until someome screws up, and they meet...test of manhood, perhaps. Violent, unbelieveable, absurd. Always so. The town of Berisso--close to the river, rickety shacks, open fields. Gray-brown expanse away to Uruguay. In clay: the figure of a Russian woman--that's how she's described. An immigrant, like all the rest (Italia, Grecia, Cabo Verde). Kneeling, with a basket of fruit. The strength in that pose, also ancient...

Espero sin Esperanza

Espero pero sin esperanza. When I told Mauricio the title, I had to add an immediate disclaimer. Was that for myself, or for him? Of course, sin esperanza...where to wait becomes to hope. A cloud--white against blue, ruffled edges, they mill about, constantly changing. Imagined beings, at least from below: a figure on horseback, a dragon, a knowing cat. Nicola, yesterday morning, for example--I lean down, put my face close to hers, at the very end of the bed. A meow of acknowledgment--and disregard. She jumps to the floor, and with four quick steps to the bedroom door, pauses for a long long stretch...then disappears suddenly down the stairs...