About a month ago, some lads brought a horse to graze on the plot of land alongside ours. Sadly, though unsurprisingly, la yegua isn’t doing a very good job of clearing the brambles.
There’s another plant, too, that she seems to be studiously avoiding, and the other night the car headlights caught this pale army standing menacingly tall on the other side of the wall:
Now that, all over Spain, we’ve dutifully reflected without concentrating, and done our civic duty and voted for whoever we’ve voted for, abstained in protest, or blotted our ballots, the results are out. The Guardian website headline reads:
Which is all very well, but although popular can be correctly translated as ‘of the people’, the PP, the Partido Popular, is not what I would call a People’s party.
Continue reading “what’s in a name”
Two fragments from old poems written about the same time, and clearly written at this time of year:
From The language of flowers:
[…] Shocking pink
petunias shout aloud,
while pompom marigolds,
in shades of summer, shine
like a myriad cartoon suns.
From In due season:
The hennaed heads of marigolds
rubberneck from roundabouts
and corporation window boxes shout
with yellow pansies.
Looking for something else entirely, I found this photo. Today the sky is pretty much that same shade of blue, but there are only a few rags of snow left on the mountains.
Today is a day of reflection prior to the Spanish elections tomorrow, and the Junta Electoral has reminded us that on such days la ley prohibe todo acto de propaganda – the law bans the staging of any act of propaganda or electoral campaigning.
That has been ruled to include the recent protest gatherings – las manifestaciones y concentraciones – across the country, so I suppose I must keep quiet and reflect. (But without concentrating.)
don't confuse the narrator 