POEM OF THE SPANISH POET
IN a hotel room somewhere in Iowa an American poet, tired of his poems, tired of being an American poet, leans back in his chair and imagines he is a Spanish poet, an old Spanish poet, nearing the end of his life, who walks to the Guadalquivir and watches the ships, gray and ghostly in the twilight, slip downstream. The little waves, approaching the grassy bank where he sits, whisper something he can’t quite hear as they curl and fall. Now what does the Spanish poet do? He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a notebook, and writes:
Black fly, black fly Why have you come
Is it my shirt My new white shirt
With buttons of bone Is it my suit
My dark blue suit Is it because
I lie here alone Under a willow
Cold as stone
Black fly black fly
How good you are
To come to me now
How good you are
To visit me here
Black fly, black fly To wish me goodbye