When Lorca was murdered they had him turn around and look down the steep mountainside at Granada far below. Goodbye hometown. They shot him in the back as always, also in the butt because he was gay. The powerful rifles splintered him and later the family picked up the pieces on the slope for burial. What a rare bird. It was like shooting the last blue heron on earth. There's a sundial there now. We drank a bottle Christine made called Memoire. I choked on the wine and tears. At some ages he was my favorite poet who would make me moonstruck. I walked along the Guadalquivir in Seville and saw his perpetual shadow in the moving water, the local gitano music constricting and exploding the heart. Water kept carrying this burden of musical shadow to the ocean. In the Mediterranean I heard his voice on the water.
You can find this poem in Jim Harrison’s fantastic book — Dead Man’s Float. © Copper Canyon Press, 2016
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Thank you. A perfect poem with which to mourn the killing of Navalny.
This poem really got me.
God how fucked up humans can be in their righteous bigotry.
The killing of beauty and art and innocence. As always.
A stunning poem with the water offering some relief and healing.