- Sabe donde este patio es?
- The merwoman has come to San Miguel to find it,
- to rest in the warm shade of this loggia
- and feel the breeze, hear the birds,
- to reach out for an orange and peel it,
- inhaling Valencia.
- .
- Her country is gray, damp with mist and rain,
- fraught with the madness of a new king
- and the despair of his subjects.
- The image of the courtyard has called her here.
- She walks the narrow stone walkways,
- dodges cycles and trucks on the cobblestoned streets,
- moving always a la sombra as the sun pounds down.
- Everywhere she is met by walls.
- High, thick, topped with shards of glass.
- There are gates, ponderous iron,
- giving no glimpse of what they open to,
- their beauty hinting at what may lie within,
- teasing that they might open to her courtyard.
- The air is on the move, waves of heat and fine sand
- blowing in from the high deserts that surround this mountain town.
- The merwoman moves slowly through it all,
- peering into open shops, cafes, apothecaries.
- In a massive wall an open gate releases the sound of guitars
- and she is drawn into an ancient monastery
- where she takes a seat in the shade.
- There are breezes, birds, even oranges.
- It isn’t the courtyard she sought, but it will do.
- Her head is throbbing from the altitude,
- her lungs burning from the dryness,
- her every cell longing for water,
- and it will do. It is beautiful.
- .
- The merwoman has come to San Miguel
- and rested in an ancient courtyard.
- She will return now to the sea,
- and to the country of the mad king, her country.
