TE19 Iberian Adventure

El Colombiario

when a cocked gun was aimed at his temple. To the usual sheepfold, to the nights of harp and liquor that flood the swamp with serenade and splash the awakening herd, to the singing of the moriche palms when they foretell a drizzle of fine rain, the muddy perfume of damp earth, to return swift, impetuous and defiant like a stray that waits to be branded, and go back to being a stripling that rounds up strays, to return to the place where banished dreams cling on, to the wonderful faded picture of horses prancing at every moment of life, to the accursed spring that brings up memories unforgotten, to the plains stranded in a kiss of red dust. To return. That’s what the wretched exile wanted when he aimed a cocked gun at the temple of a condemned lover. looking for the dried up tracks of yesterday or following the stale breath from the edges of the fireside, to return to the hut where every night he found carnal refuge

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