Andalusia by Bill Yarrow

I.

partners in sunset
the hawk and I in ballet

..............................he:..........the small flame in the wind

..............................I:............the last tremor of grace


the snow came from Andalusia

like a sweet tongue
......................deep in my ears


I have an appetite for...................snowfall

sunset

silence

I survive myself

I circle the summits
of the depths I reach

reflections of the hawk
faint mountain silhouette
in what heart's alchemy,
do I turn you golden?
in what heaven are you

sanctuary?



II.

the hawk flies in my blood


I am the billow of a sail
dark shadow
of the electrical storm



beside me
the swollen weather

I am the same surface
as the sea gone to fight

the butterfly and the hawk
surrender me
to the silence and modesty
of the highest hills

we are a geometry
of hard and soft

green ghosts

a parade of kinship with dust


the barnacle announces the debacle:

I am the overgrown garden


the blood of the soft memory

is spilled on a tabernacle of mud


it is no longer warm in Granada: the water is defeated
and the clouds are swollen with bile

I have appetite for sunset

silence

snowfall




III.

so I will grow fat
and die

the hawk my vizier my dome

I

his saraband
his song

partners in sunset
silent separate
beings in the twilight

we circle each other

I am my neighbor's journey
of a hardship’s miles

the sun bakes me in a shell
the carts of Compostela
carry me to caves saintly with moss

here they come
to rectify

I have appetite for: silence
the hawk circles my surrender
the blossoms are without greed
the sun wants its butterfly

Andalusia stands
on hawk wings

to see me now
is to see a curtain
of the mind

I have no body

snowfall

sunset



IV.

the blood of a thousand hardened dreams
decays, reduced to a prose
no longer of roses.

someone is a ballet dancer
someone is drawing in charcoal
someone holds a bowl of sea glass in his hand
someone defies the sky’s existence

the moon is a hawk
with its beak
in my eye

Velasquez beside me
scribe of fire

on opposite sides of the river
the hawk and the sun
in flight beside the wind

the activity is continuous
I am born
in the instant of amethyst


the Bedouin holds a snow petal
out to the hungry hawk

the hawk snarls in the raw
of his wings

the dust moves

the hawk bristles in his feather folds

I am taken to the butterfly

silently the snow
suddenly
comes from Andalusia


V. I lie down in amethyst
all my dreams show
black silhouettes of ballerinas
in tungsten and shade
hawks retracing their steps
a land remorseful for agency

sunset?
snowfall?
silence?

there is no weather
to speak of

The hawk sings winter in his soaring wings




Bill Yarrow’s poems have appeared in Central Park, Confrontation, Berkeley Poets Cooperative, Poem, and many others. His chapbook "Wrench" is available from erbacce-press. He lives in Illinois.