TE19 Iberian Adventure

Albert Bonjoch

The Blind and Deaf Burial

If he could see the scorched skin of the afternoon dressed in scarlet linen,

the remote shadow of the funeral bower where mourners shed tears and rum, the light of the bonfire like watercolours, the dueling clothes, the colourful fastenings of the hammocks, embers roasting the meat that feeds the collective lament that inspires strength to carry on, the mob in their smoking and drinking slowly chewing condolences, eyes already dead without their lustrous green depth that so many years ago had managed to sow stars over his eternal night, the blind minstrel would stop singing with his soul’s eyes to the memory of his beloved guajira. If she could hear the futile fearlessness of the sea’s caresses on the arid cove, the dry murmur of solace that the funeral procession warbled, the din of dogs sniffing the slaughtered goats 32