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...