Old Cuenca, Spain
Uphill all travellers walk, the cobbles climb,
the sun juts across cool alleyways giddy
with tottering lintel and dogs in doorways
and the sturdy stones of streets. Old Cuenca.
Hanging houses grip the cliffs. Below,
the river slackens. Farther south the sea
disperses Moors and Romans. Mosses grow
on cracking walls. An ancient church gone rife
with swallows rusts its weathervanes. There's rhyme.
The soft thump of a soccer ball, a shout,
decide a day that cannot call the shots
that shutter it, but only spiral upward
in a seeking strong as music that escapes
above the bar and panaderia,
abrupt but never perfect. Slipping scrapes
your knees. But soccer's sudden as a bird
startled from a tree, and longing goads
a unity: car doors, squeaked clotheslines, strays
sniffing bins in yards, someone rinsing pots
as sunlight lowers and a burst of life
illumines shutters. Farther up the road
the city halts its height. Bright stars are out.
Richard Carter
Have you seen the writing on the wall
Managing Editor:
b stephen harding,
Consulting Editor:
Seymour Mayne
Guest Editor: Stephanie
Bolster
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