spain – Page 48 – don't confuse the narrator

positivity check

When I first moved to Spain, the country was suffering a drought.

shoe boxes left behind after a street market

I think that lasted for the first eight years that I lived in Madrid, and, understandably, I didn’t really appreciate how bad it was, as I had nothing to compare the weather to. Yes, it was sunny; yes it was hot; but wasn’t that what Spanish weather was meant to be like?

(We all have a tendency to fall back on stereotypes. When I tell people I live in Spain they assume I must live on one of those fictional costas where no one ever does any work but spends all day and all the long, hot night sitting at a terraza on the beach drinking iced beer or cheap vino tinto.)
Continue reading “positivity check”

the fruits of the earth

While each grape dreams a dream
of champagne-bubble destiny, figs
turn to honey on the branch. Pumpkins swell,
and melons hoard up sunshine, sprawled
voluptuous on their beds of straw.

There was just enough blue sky to take the photo this morning – yes, figs do sometimes grow vertically upwards, and although they look less appetising, the honey-brown ones that are beginning to wrinkle are the sweetest. The clouds are gathering again, though, so the poor melons and pumpkins are more likely to be ‘bathing voluptuous’ in fields all around the Valle del Tiétar within an hour or so.

early autumn

It’s September, and, with its usual regularity, the weather has changed and it begins to feel quite autumnal. We’ve had a few storms recently, which have brought down yet more windfalls.

fairground colours

Fairground colours fade with sunlight;
chrome still glints, but tawdry pastels
replace pounding neon, and disproportioned
Disney silhouettes pale under ragged awnings.

(Notes for a poem, rather than a finished piece.)
Continue reading “fairground colours”