village life – Page 37 – don't confuse the narrator

swallows

with primaries taut, they finger-tip
the contoured air, screeching
a splay-tailed upward glide to peak

then tuck – dip – swoop –

and skim the puddled mud,
gape-mouthed and hungering.

It’s San José – St Joseph’s Day – which is Father’s Day in Spain, and a bank holiday in parts of the country. It’s also the day that the swallows return to Capistrano, which is why I’ve chosen to post this poem. (Or, perhaps, this ‘poem draft’.)
Continue reading “swallows”

white

snowdust on the mountain;
weft of cirrus; along the bridle path,
a twist of lamb’s wool, bramble-caught.

(No photo of the lamb’s wool, I’m afraid – it looks awfully grubby when you try and take a close-up!)

por un tubo

Some Spanish and English words, such as tubo and “tube” are clear and indisputable cognates, at least in some contexts. “A tube of toothpaste” is, indeed, un tubo.

But when we talk about the tubería in a season as wet as this winter has been, we’re probably not referring to the internet being a “series of tubes”, but about the waterpipes and whether they will cope with amount of rain that continues to fall.

water pipes overflowing — A series of tubes

like a lamb

Well, we’ve reached the end of the month and the expression “February fill dyke” has never seemed more appropriate.

How March is to come in remains to be seen: last night, I thought it was going to come roaring like a lion, but today has been as mild a day as you could wish for. On a walk back from the village at lunch time I saw:

swallows: I don’t know how many it takes to make a summer in Spain, but there were several.
lizards: not the first of the season, but the first time this year that I have seen more than just the one.
a stork circling the church tower.
a bat: I thought for a moment it was another swallow, but there’s no doubt it was a bat, even though it was broad daylight.
a red admiral butterfly: who must have managed to weather the storms and was now enjoying the sunshine

Continue reading “like a lamb”

fire and rain

Some readers will remember the fraught few days last summer when I wondered if the house was to be burned to a frazzle by the Gredos fire. It’s hard to believe that with all the rain that’s fallen recently.

Anyway, I still have a “Google alert” set up that tells me when any relevant news appears on the web. Which is why I’ve just seen this headline from the catástrofes y accidentes section of ABC online: