Abstract Photo 1388 Zorongo

 Letter Z: Title:  Zorongo

Tribute to Federico García Lorca

On my island, faces formed on the warm glass

of the small kitchen window, as sweet steam

from my heirloom Spanish china cup

swirled up from Carmencita black tea,

teasing the hard driving rain into fat droplets

as squads of rain men passed in wet parade

on a dull dun day just like many that Raymond Carver

would have stared into out across the white-capped

Strait of Juan de Fuca, sipping whiskey, smoking

and patiently waiting for his words to stir, releasing

poetics, letting it blossom out of the dampness--

but Carver was not there at my special window,

no, as I sipped hot castanet gulps and listened

to the flamenco falsettas, feeling those strong

classical rhythms burst out bullanguero,

thrusting untouched deep into the downpour,

and my thoughts returned to Spain,

to August 1936 near the great fountain

at Alfacar where a thin smartly attired

Garcia Lorca stood with three other men

being called communist faggots by their

Nationalist firing squad, and I wondered

if Lorca was thinking about his love affair

with Dali, or the burly sculptor Adadren

as the bastardo bullets hit his flesh,

did he boldly meet the brass in a passionate

arranque, or did the indifferent fussilade

just thud dully, like a cruel a golpe,

as the beautiful poet slipped away

from his tormenters;

making me ponder as to where his killers

had actually put his riddled husk, for

it is well known that after the death of Franco,

when they dug up Lorca’s shallow grave,

they could not find any human remains;

God, he had even escaped excavation.

So where was Lorca?

I smiled broadly then, for on that day

Lorca had appeared just for me

as a quicksilver bust in motion,

straight down the heated glass

of my many paned window,

to the fervent sad strains

of a zorongo, a liquid lullaby

in 2/4 time, as his gypsy verses

echoed in the warm corners

of my kitchen, and in the rare

Spanish corridors of my heart. 

Zorongo - Glenn Buttkus