Getting the news in Arabic, To think of Madrid, March 11
GETTING THE NEWS IN ARABIC
tells me more these days than
news with words I know.
Our TV tells me stocks are down
because somewhere a person explodes.
On a short wave I find Radio Martí
which has nothing to do with the poet,
a Bin Laden country song, Christian
broadcast. For a minute there is testimony
of a soldier: "I was sedated in Iraq
and woke up in Texas." He says he chose
to lose his leg rather than stay another
minute. A minute later the station
is lost to more frothy words about
the rising of Christ, but I don't want
to hear today of the thorn and the nail
and the stone rolled back from the tomb.
It is Easter Sunday in Fallujah, too,
where bombs are dropped on mosques
and they bury 600 dead in schools
and soccer fields, anywhere the ground
can be dug. The cemeteries are outside
of town and they are trapped inside it.
My friend is translating, asks me
the word for mob to explain that,
further south, one sets trucks on fire.
The camera pans to show a car
run over by a tank. The blood of the man
who'd been in it streaks its white door.
Two men pull back a blanket to show
the camera a dead child. Look away
if you can, don't see it or the small still
child with a bandaged head who
has not yet learned the words freedom
or democracy. God save us from
the English language, from the ones
who silence mouths in the name of you.
TO THINK OF MADRID, MARCH 11
is to think of the station
itself, Atocha, its vast
cathedral face, its promise
of infinite vectors quiet
endless platforms and in
the center a rainforest, thick
blanket of leaf and turtle
stillness inside the bustle
water drips from the palm
fronds and the sun slats
down to make church light
above the tracks that used to
lead somewhere before
the bodies lay beside them
lined up like railroad ties
each in the same black sack
up the street the Guernica
screams the shattered heads
weeping for the new deaths
blinded eyes small limbs
broken seven decades these
heads have wept and there is
no reason to stop now when
the sanctity of skin rips open
a child and her grandmother
sits and stares pain etched
into her skin as in an ancient cave
she thinks of her brother shot
in '39 thinks how they will
wait together her brother her
grandchild together they will
wait for her somewhere if there
is a somewhere if there is a
God in Madrid now they weld
and tear with huge machines
to break a train into parts
to haul away the people stream
the streets a bitter river in the
Plaza de Santa Anna Lorca
holds a bird in his hands a gift
from the people of Madrid who
hold their arms up now empty
palms out to the sky shouting
solo queremos paz solo queremos
paz the cold cold rain upon
their heads in Alcalá de Henares
they bury the dead and pieces
of the dead who left two days
ago and thought if they
were old enough to think
that they would be back
after dark and see the great
storks shadowed in the steeples
and the sun gild again
the ancient thought-filled
stone as it did for Cervantes
as it did for them before
the innocent train pushed
its nose into the dark
toward the schools
the factories Madrid
where blood stains
the streets again the great
train station where blood
is on the palm fronds
and the silent turtles
their necks out toward
the sun and on the statue
of a man who stands
reading and reading
the same stone book
