Dragon Trees -- by Seymour Mayne

Dragon Trees

Poems by Seymour Mayne

SPAIN, YOU HURT ME

     "Beware of those who love you!
      Beware of your heroes!
      Beware of your dead!"

     César Vallejo
           (translated by C. Eshleman
            and J.R. Barcia)

Spain, you hurt me —
          said the poet —

in the heart, in the mind,
          in the legs

that flee from the killing
          grounds
and your vengeful priests.

Spain, you are hurtful,
          he uttered
with his last breath

and left his body
          in the compromised

republican soil
          of France.

MUSEO DEL JAMÓN

As if to say,
the eastern ones
    are no longer among us

— or if they are,
    let them be
        warned:

We are worshippers
    of ham,
fine ham — from Serrano
        the best!

We will keep ourselves
— this way —
        free
of Hebrews and Moors!

Madrid

MADRID EVENING

The madness of the sun's heat
once split open
this smouldering earth like a pod.

Now it sleeps again,
wounded
for another hundred years.

Casa de Campo

LA LAGUNA BEAUTY

What secret pain and softness
do you hide?
A man could throw
half his life away
just to hold you in his arms
one night through
to the hastening dawn.

CONSTITUTION PARK

The thick dragon trees
          inch upwards year by year
toward the crystal sky,

their wide trunks clipped
          by season
the leaves spread out
          as if readying for flight.

Where are the fruit,
          where's the giving?

They simply cleanse
          the night air
and filter through the sputter
          of cars
yet remain impervious
          to the clouds
and passing politics of men.

La Laguna, Tenerife

CÓRDOBA

There is a smell of leather
          in Córdoba,
of tanned hide.

Even the walls
          and squares
are stricken
as if with the slow
strokes of a tanner.
They are thickened
          by each blow
of submission
without word, past
          glory preserved.

Hold Córdoba snugly
          under your arm,
hold her close
          full as she is,
a seasoned satchel
bleached and baked
by the impassive
          but crafty sun.

ABOVE THE PUERTA
      for Bernd Dietz

Scattering
          above the Puerta
                    de Almodóvar
loud
        formations
                    of sparrows
rise
      over the palms
                    break into arcs,
wheel back again
          towards the gravity
                          of the tower.

Why
        should they
                    guide themselves
to our feet
          or plentiful
                    crumbs?
They are high,
          higher now
                    than the pacific sun
which earlier
          nudged them into
                    the thousand and one
perches and shelters
              by the gardens
                    along the ancient walls.

Afire
          with flight
                    they pepper
the air,
          careening buckshot
aimed
          at the ceramic blue.

They shatter the peace
          with yet
                     another lunge
before night
          settles them into
                  the armistice of sleep.

Acknowledgements

These poems first appeared in Bywords, the broadsheet Córdoba (Centre for Canadian Studies), Five O'Clock Shadows (Letters Bookshop), Sealed in Struggle: Canadian Poetry & the Spanish Civil War, An Anthology (Center for Canadian Studies), and the electronic journal Travelterrific.