Juan Sánchez Cotán, "Still Life with Game Fowl, Vegetables and Fruits," 1602
I’ll sit and wait for a while, dark sliver of a moon overhead, a shadow on shadow, a fermata. I’m at an impasse, the land tilting up ever so slightly, just enough to wear me down, and I cannot hold on to myself. Can’t hold, so I’m falling. Full stop.
There is a castle in Granada, Bibataubín: it hasn’t a hold, or keep. Near it, a rondilla from Cervantes, where shady folk would cut a purse, where honest folk would lose their compass. I’m on hold. Finally, I put the phone back in its cradle, ending the music.
In the center of the fullness of things, an emptiness. In the emptiness, that’s where the mystics say Love is: a dark mirror, a new moon. Only I’m not able to attend, to pass through the gateless gate: too full of words, of this sadness, altogether too heavy to hold.