a
cigarette dangling on his lips
his
eyes open but squinting
documents
in a rucksack
over
his left shoulder
poems
stuffed in his back pocket
the
mountains to his back
gleaming
an afternoon light
a
long way from the dark back alleys
of
his boyhood home in algeria
he
of all people was a guide
pacifist TB
lungs and all
for
the international anti-fascist volunteers
crossing
over from france to spain
this
was 1936-37
and
the battle for madrid was before them
there
were writers & poets
and
steelworkers
and
cadre of the great san francisco general strike
but
camus kept his eyes on the trail
a
third eye some might argue
that
bourgeois boasters were incapable
of
seeing from their inflated perches and journals
camus
learned the song lyrics the first time
in
more than one language
long
before hemingway drank
from
the magic well of
one
big resistance
so
many years and polemics
have
passed mostly without purpose
there's
no need to explain or separate
allegory
from historical record
let
the spanish soil speak for itself
camus
still stands
on
the outer edge of puerta del sol
a
third eye
a
vision
--- e b bortz
