Poem for August

A Walk with Miguel

Miguel tells us

that what is buried here

stays here,

under the Portuguese sun

as he fans himself

with the straw hat

he swings by his side,

and that when we see

petals fall and the last bees

hover as awkward heads

of raw-green skin

suddenly appear

that that is when

apples bud and dangle

like unwanted words

and then blossom

tilting this way and that.

This he tells us

means that spring has arrived

as the new-born sunlight

leans against the slope

above a small stream

flowing through the valley

where cork oak trees

in open woodlands

are warm to the touch

in the sheer wind passing

as nearby sheep graze

and Iberian pigs

thrive on the fallen acorns.

Miguel’s hobbled walk

is steady like an old horse

put out to pasture

and against the blinding sunlight

he is more scarecrow than man

but we keep up

stride for stride

past the slanted hillside-

fincas and eucalyptus ready

for the harvest

and the olives

recently picked;

the marks of nets

dried in the ground

where the shaken olives

had fallen and are kept

beside the stone walls

in barrels.

Miguel says it is better

to be here now

rather than in the dry heat

of summer when crickets

sing and the vines

are weighed down by fruit

and when buses full of tourists

roam the old mosaic floors

entombed in foundations

lived over for thousands of years

he says, antiquity like all else

is best kept in the dark.

He is an old man

who is careful with his smile

and as careful at picking bones

from sardines and tipping

his hat to old woman passing

on their way to market.

He has lived here forever

he says as do

his ten grandchildren

he reminds us

when he extends his hand

for the coins and dollars

we lay flat on his tanned palm

and as we head back

to the parked car beside the café

with a shiny apple and green olives

still full of grass we had taken

from the fields,

Miguel is approaching another couple

talking aloud of Roman ruins,

of hillsides full of olives and sheep,

of acorns and the smell of spring,

of how an old man with ten grandchildren

knows the secrets of old Rome.

Steven Pelcman

Acta-Victoriana magazine Toronto Canada spring 2015