Terragona
(For Lois, Patricia, Ron and Evelyn)
Hibiscus spreads on the high white of walls —
summer’s last harvest,
meanwhile the condominiums grow and replicate
south of Barcelona.
Hillside by hillside
the white box balconies
speak to the next century —
rows and rows of endless trees
groomed and neat.
On the trail of desire even now
in mid-October
approaching fifty
you await some decided turn in your life and I,
so short on answers,
merely report dutifully to what is known —
a job, an ill-defined art,
to love appropriately — all in its place —
to past travels
when our bodies hardly balked
at the demands of voyaging — walking — waiting —
climbing —
that excitement for the new, that easy familiarity with the world
when all seemed plausible.
In the train car, a young blonde boy sits — an adolescent
looking out, next to mother and daughter.
Backward and forward I go into time —
he faces south toward sunlight,
I face north to the mountains carved out by buildings and towers,
displacements of mankind --- I am heading to the city
as he looks back at the bright shoreline of the sea —
vagaries of blue and color in evaporating distance.
My view of bridges and highways — smokestacks.
He talks to his sister about us,
pointing with amusement
perhaps at the coupling of two men, middle-aged men
whom he ridicules and scorns.
He cannot know of Virginia —
the journey I have made
from painful innocence to the recognition of more adult
knowledge and despair — the disappointment that awaits
his confidence.
I am bound for Barcelona
toward a city like any city
where destination is no longer a mystery —
smokestacks, power stations dotting the sea —
the boy plays at his fame — with his pen he completes his puzzle,
writing words beside the moving window of the train —
walls of cinderblock, derricks —
crossings and constructions
that the young must make
to connect to a newer age
one that will exceed even this —
valleys and fields of the old coast —
ruined aqueducts —
may he someday complete the puzzle of the heart.
​
from Transatlantic by Walter Holland © 2001