The Cries of La Corrida, and: On a Train Heading North to Bilbao
- The Cries of La Corrida, and: On a Train Heading North to Bilbao
The Cries of La Corrida
Drawn in by the cries of la corrida, I lose myself,join the crowd in taunting the bull. Cheerlos picadores lancing its neck. Hail armored horsestrampling the edge of the ring.
When los banderilleros provoke, I admire their skill,praise each pierce, the bull's eyesrolling in maddened exhaustion,barbed flags waving against its bloodspilled back.
I want to cry for the bull, gored and breathless,how it stains red the arena's yellow sand,how, spurred forward, it rushes el matador,head falling lower with each missed pass.
Instead, I think of my sister left lifeless on impact,body strewn unfamiliar in a ditch. The bull—my sister—sees death dressed in headlights,doesn't understand the spectacle of a body left broken. [End Page 112]
On a Train Heading North to Bilbao
I search for you in the blur of countryside.Aste Nagusia is calling me home,where overbearing puppets parade the streets,cast shadows that darken the sun.
You are Marijaia looming from her balcony,commencing music to blanket the night.Txistu and tambor are the pulse of our people,while Peonies and Roman candles burn the Basque sky.
When I see you, I try to measure griefin a half-cup I fill, forget to level off.The scale is never the same.After nine days, you burn, mark the end of another beginning.
I, too, am consumed by fire. [End Page 113]
Ernesto L. Abeytia is a Spanish-American poet and teacher. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Shallow Ends, Crab Orchard Review, Fugue, PBS NewsHour, and elsewhere. He holds an mfa in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, an ma in English from Saint Louis University, and an ma in Anglo/North-American Cultural and Literary Studies from the Autonomous University of Madrid in Madrid, Spain. He currently teaches at Arizona State University.
