Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

Crossing Over

Between the new world 
and old, find a bridge that goes 
over the chasm. 

Adjusting to Lisbon 

They put plates on the table,
not asked for.  Like octopus,
garbanzo beans with tuna, 
some hard cheese. 
Call it the "cover." 
For one lunch, at an outdoor table 
with a musician strumming his guitar, 
playing, maybe fado-a sad song-
nine of us are billed thirty Euros,
which is almost the same as dollars,
for the bread and water. 
The exchange rate is close. 
We need to push bottles 
and dishes away . . . As with here, 
there, one word still works,
though we're slow to learn it: 
no. 

Co-existence in Évora

Morning in the praça, 
retired men would meet and chat. 
Age-and gender too-brought 
rewards.  Or at least did 
once.  Because more recently, 
younger women broke 
the taboo.  A tension at first-
whose square was this?-
and then, with time, an uneasy 
co-existence.  Now with tourists out
on this perfect sunlit day 
in September, and everyone 
mixing in, by the shops, 
the church, a tourist's office, 
bank, cafés, it all seems natural.

Chapel of Bones

A Capela dos Ossos, chapel of bones,
built by Franciscan monks 
at Évora's Church of St. Francis 
in the 16th Century. 
How methodically they must have gone 
about their work, or art, have drawn 
from thousands of skeletons, 
as if mere pigments for a canvas, 
and they had the heart of a Brueghel 
in his Triumph of Death.  Skulls line the vault 
of the ceiling; leg and arm bones 
make up the many supporting columns. 
And surely life is fragile!
All we strive for in this, the physical realm, 
may be for naught.  But is this a way 
to say it, and through indi-
rection, to suggest in a time, not distant 
from plague and Inquisition, 
perhaps implicitly, the spiritual? 
Or have we here a view of life 
with the joke on us?  There's a writing,
macabre, for each to take to heart. 
Nos ossos que estamos pelos 
vossos esperamos:  we bones that are here 
are waiting for yours.  And that tale 
about one of the bodies that hangs 
from the top of a column 
near the chapel ceiling, a man, cruel 
to his wife, whom even the worms 
didn't want:  to wit, a moral, 
if one dare take it, 
be kind:  be wanted by worms!

Sculpture of a Coffin with a Body

The very building 
that once housed the Tribunal 
of the Inquisition
is part of the University 
of Évora now.
Outside, there's a small granite sculpture
of a coffin with a body in it-
tasteful, minimalist. 
It could relate to almost anything. 
People come and go. 
Do they care, know?

Cromlech of Almedres

A side trip to the Cromlech of Almedres
with its megalithic stone monuments
arranged in a circle, ninety-five, 
going back some hundreds of generations . . . 
We slip out of the bus; some talk of Stonehenge,
while we walk amidst them with our cameras 
clicking, though mostly silent, reflective 
of the passage of time.  I stand next to one 
that towers over me.  There's a thought that this 
was a solar temple once, even as the tour guide identifies
the phallic obvious.  It was a setting for what:
the telling of the seasons? wild sexual orgies? 
sacrifices, animal or human? religion?  No one is here 
to ensure the preservation of this place, 
no park ranger, Portuguese official-not enough 
resources for that.  And yet this spot on the Iberian Peninsula 
still seems wild, untrammeled.  Generations rise 
and fall quickly.  Are we as distant as we might think 
from before all of our computers, cars, trains, 
the Middle Ages, Islam, Christianity, 
the Roman Empire, Greek philosophy, Judaism? 
Surely, the people who came here, 
to these stones, sacred or not, must've thought,
at least at times, of their future, and their children's. 
Aware of mortal frailty, they'd have looked 
at the sun above, stars wheeling through an appalling 
darkness, and like us today, wondered . . . 

Legend of the Cock

All over the country now, this legend. 
A small town.  A man condemned to be hanged 
for something he didn't take-piece of silver, 
a plate, a chalice . . . The details vary.
His last wish-to see the Judge-
is granted.  He pleads his innocence 
at the latter's home:  the people laugh around 
the table-upon which lies
a roasted cock.  In an act of madness-
call it faith-the condemned man, 
near weeping, cries out that to prove 
his innocence, the bird will get up and sing. 
The elements seem in place 
as if for the stage:  a sympathetic victim, 
the power of belief, God as mover of miracles, 
the sexual near, or at the surface . . . 
In the story as told-from tour guide to post card-
the rooster did rise up, to the call!
The only thing missing may be implicit, 
a beautiful woman:  does she wait 
in the wings somewhere, distraught, 
fearful of hearing the worst?  The man is set free! 
If ever there were a need for a miracle . . . 
because Portugal has known 
triumph with explorers, like Bartolomea Dias, 
Vasco da Gama, Pedro Alvares Cabral,
and then after dividing the world, 
taking half, giving Spain the other-what chutzpa there!-
a disastrous decline . . . At times a legend can be, 
like a glass of port, or two, with a toast-saúde!-
to be savored with something sweet, 
while the world churns along with its plagues
and wars, and madness, makes a person feel 
powerless. 

Barco Negro

              -from a Portuguese song 

She lay beside him on the sand, 
worried about when he'd awaken 
and see her in the first 
stirrings of day:  would he find her 
plain, or worse? 

Later, he'd left in a dark boat with a cross . . . 
But oh, how she'd been wrong, 
had half-laughed, cried that way he looked 
at her, flush in morning's sun. 

Let the old hags gossip:  it's what people do
who have nothing 
left.  When they say he won't return,
she thinks, they're crazy. 
And though the years that pass leave her 

stooped, frail . . . she's ready, lies 
back one night, eyes closed, 
for that space, precious, 
when God-willing, after an in-breath, 

the barco negro slips up to the pier 
for her, pauses . . .
and, before any out-, moves off, 
sails billowing:  a spectral glide 
to the horizon-like a dip into sleep, gone! 

Ercelia Relates . . .

I stay with her every 
word, gesture through centuries 
of the Portuguese monarchy, and finally 
down to Carlos, a painter of great skill, 
whose work hangs-profuse with color and feeling-
from the walls of this royal palace 
at Vila Viçosa. 
                        High cheek boned, passionate, 
maybe thirty, with stories to pass on, 
she speaks of Amélia, his Queen from France, 
tells-as her own eyes darken-how she'd been young, 
happy here, at least at first . . . Points to faded 
family photographs that show them with their children, 
intimate, affectionate; and what's left 
of her tour guide's voice, 
                                          falters to an unexpected tremor . . . 
Moments later, we go through the coach house, 
see bullet holes in the carriage 
King Carlos was in that winter in 1908 
when he was murdered, along with his son Luis Filipe. 
We can reach out, touch them!  That time!
When our bus starts up, for Spain,
                                                          she's outside, alone . . . 
We're moving past . . . And it's as if all 
of the figures she's brought into herself, to breathe 
to life, share with us, are gone now. 
And at least for the moment, she's empty . . . 
An impulse then-like a hurt, 
from being taken from someone known much longer-
to not leave Portugal, 
her. 

Changing Countries

We move from Portugal to Spain . . .
But even though they're so 
close, there are still 
distances here, from the sweet port of Lisbon
to the sherry of Jerez, 
from soulful fado, with its "my land of water 
in sorrow and sadness," 
to the wild passion of flamenco . . .
Once, these peoples shared land, language. 
But even as we give up the cork trees of Alentejo 
for the white hill towns of Andalucia,
we have to retire words barely learned, 
like "desculpe" when bumping into someone, 
for "perdón";
and the greeting, "bom dia" 
for "buenos días."
A waiter in Carmona said he didn't know 
the word, "conta"-Portuguese 
for bill-meant the same as "cuenta." 
We're drawn to what we've come to know. 
And so it has always been: 
our loves, divide us!

Cathedral in Seville 

In Seville, the rain 
drives us for sanctuary 
to the Cathedral 
where the last remains 
of Christopher Columbus 
lie.  A discovery!

        *   *   * 

Climb to the top
of the Cathedral, up the ever-
winding ramp, 
to see-even on this drizzly day-
from that giddy height 
such a splash of color, 
buildings, here in Seville, 
each sprawling atop 
and behind the other. 
And the bullring! 
Then imagine 
that inner climb
you have to really reach for . . . 
spirit, not body . . . 
upward:  the view 
from there.  Olé!

From Gypsies to the Minarete de San Sebastian

Fernando, our tour guide,
had warned about gypsies, hold 
onto your wallets, purses, cameras. 
Advice for Seville
and Grenada:  if they talk 
to you, don't answer. 
Just keep on walking. 
I asked if they've been oppressed, 
had read how in Rome 
they were, but he was strong 
in denial:  they have their ways, 
keep to themselves. 
In Ronda, he takes us on a tour 
of town, after dinner, at the towering 
Minarete de San Sebastian 
laments how the Christians have built 
churches over Muslim shrines. 
I think of Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock,
built over the Jewish holy temple,
ask whether the Muslims
haven't done the same. 
He says he could write a book 
with all my questions.  I'd like that.

At the Bottom of the Gorge

It's spectacular at the bottom 
of the gorge seeing atop 
the cliff, like an eagle in its aerie, our parador.
I've been doing a circuit of Ronda 
on a small green and yellow bus called Tajotur, 
no doubt from the word tajo, 
which in Spanish means cliff. 
High above us now is the new town, 
mostly commercial, called El Mercadillo, 
and the bridge that goes over the ravine, 
connecting it with La Cuidad, the old Muslim quarter. 
Next to me, an elderly woman 
from Montpelier, France, is bursting 
with excitement . . . I practice, love her language-
my Spanish is near zilch-and upon finding out
her name's Marie Antoinette,
I cannot resist saying:  whatever the view, 
you need to keep "votre tête sur vos epaules,"
your head on your shoulders; 
and for moments, even as we step outside 
for a photo, we're laughing- 
have both lost ours . . . No one knows how many 
have plunged to their death into the gorge, 
perhaps near where we stand. 
The architect of the bridge slipped, tumbled in . . .
while inspecting his work 
at the end of the Eighteenth Century;
and during the Spanish civil war, 
hundreds were unceremoniously tossed from it. 

Pre-Dawn Haiku

Awake in Ronda. 
As in the United States, 
birds chirp before dawn. 

§

I sit on a bench 
and wait for the sun to rise. 
The rest will follow.

§

From the gorge the sound 
of water:  was it always 
there?  I didn't hear. 

§

A brightening sky. 
No sun:  maybe my camera 
makes it a bit shy.

§

The rumble of cars 
and cycles.  People have no 
patience for the dawn. 

The Priest Who Closed His Breviary

The priest, who wouldn't end
the Church meeting with a prayer 
because it had been opened with a poem 
about a bullfighter, Garcia Lorca's 
"Lament For Ignacio Sanchez Mejias"-

he had tremblingly 
murmured:  "too much blood there"-
would lie, eyes glazed, 
                                a month later, 
on that deserted 
street corner, his life seeping 

away; 
and the words of Lorca 
from his having gazed upon, 
not just the torero's, 
but his own bloody end, 
would echo:  "No.  I refuse 
to see it!  There's no 
chalice to contain it, 
no swallow 
               to drink it up . . ."

*   *   *

God,
nothing stops
the holy man's dying
for the paltry 
few dollars he'd have gladly given 
away. 

*   *   *

Consider how a man or woman
can be possessed for days, 
months, years, 
                    training agonizingly 
toward what God-like perfection, 
and in those precious moments 
of arrival, 
to be destroyed 
prematurely, it would seem, 

bewilderingly . . . And so, "lead us in prayer," 
they asked, in that sandstone 
church on that hill, over-
looking desert;
                     and while he thought 
of St. Francis'
"Where there is doubt, 
let me sow faith . . . 
where there is despair, 
                                let me sow 
hope . . . " 
it was as if the priest felt, 
though with no torero's cape in hand, 
nor banderillas, 
nor crowd cheering, 

like Ignacio, 
before that awful 
                        charge of the bull-
or Lorca himself, who would write of this,
"teach me to weep like a river,"
at the height of his powers, 

knowing . . . 

*   *   *

(a chanteuse on the phono 
over scratches from hand-me-
down vinyl), 
                  a man embraces a woman
passionately, almost
brutally. 
                      And why such violence? 
the mourners wonder.  And the sacrilege, 
why a priest? which cuts 
both ways, not just his untimely demise, 
but the sanctification 
of a life chosen. 

             *   *   *

                           A blur to the images-
the murdered priest, a book 
with that Lorca poem, the lovers
downstairs.  The creak 
and rhythm 
of their bed beginning . . . 
The mattress goes forward 
and back . . . 
                     even as what will be, 
is 
and was and was, 
                           shudders forward
and back.

The Flamenco Dancer

In that restaurant 
in Ronda, the pizza can barely 
be cut, the bread-unasked for-
might serve as paperweights; 
they bill us for it, two Euros,
leave me cash-short; 
but oh, the Spanish flamenco dancer, 
rat-tat-tatting with her heels 
in that black dress with red 
flounces and a fan, 
like a matador's cape.  I charge ahead 
blindly, cry out, 
"bravo," confusing languages. 

The Photographers

The photographers, two couples with heavy 
cameras and lenses they're constantly adjusting, 
stand out alone. 
Sometimes I feel sorry for them, 
particularly one man, stocky, with gray hair, 
who looks in his late 60s, 
his breathing labored as he struggles 
with his equipment, drags it along.  Everywhere! 
Once in Córdoba, I saw him 
frozen, not a tremor of motion save for the sweat 
on his brow, for five minutes, it seemed, 
like a hunter crouched with a rifle, in a shooter's pose.
He was waiting for the street 
to clear, though the lunchtime crowd kept coming . . . 
They drive the tour guide Fernando crazy, 
because he has to keep track of where 
they drift off to, 
and they importune-even when there's no place 
to park the bus-to stop. 
I mention they'd been to Kenya recently-
they're not young-and it's rugged terrain, 
and how they've talked about a future trip to Antarctica, 
thinking Fernando might be impressed, 
to which his triumphant, 
"ha, they'll take ten thousand pictures of the snow."

A Local Guide on the Alhambra

In the harem there, he said 
the musicians were made eunuchs, 
and then blinded 
so as not to see the women. 
Art is not an easy path.

*   *   *

seriously. 

Lost in Toledo 

Wandering Toledo's labyrinthine streets
with its everywhere churches, artisan shops, selling 
ceramic and gold, Christian and Arabic designs, 
Stars of David, and Menorahs, too . . . I'd come up the elevator 
near Bisagra Gate, had stayed too long, can't find the way 
back.  Everyone gives me directions, contradicting 
the last, and maybe the problem is the streets:  they run 
in crazy slants.  I'd heard that at a certain hour, the elevator stops, 
the city closes its gates, and you're locked in. 
I feel a chill.  Better to mingle now with the ghosts 
which I'd felt since I'd come . . . Discover, 
past the sweetness of the marzipan they sell 
on every street corner, the Sinagoga de Santa Maria Blanca 
with its Moorish arches inside, a cross in the nave, 
and Biblical images, including one of Jesus, arms wide in a posture 
of suffering that takes me back to the 150,000 Jews in Spain 
at the time of the forced expulsion.  They'd had a home for centuries, 
were told in what was madness to convert to Catholicism 
in mere days-the tour leader said fifteen-or leave.  And so most did! 
Doctors, rabbis, philosophers-heirs to Maimonides-
merchants, artisans, dragging their paucity of pots, pans, 
Stars of David, prayer books, shawls-because how much can one 
take? it's like suffering, there's a limit.  Wagons load, 
a chicken screeches, children bawl, the sick, the lame, moving . . .
There are stars on the tiled floor.  Jewish?  I try 
to see this house of worship as it had been, 
want to, with a dreamer's love, undo what the guidebook calls 
an "eclectic gem," restore it to what was, 
even as I walk off, mingle with ghosts, flitting through the streets, 
leaving behind where they'd been born, married, 
had children, burial plots for parents, and theirs before . . . 

The Taxi Driver Wants to Chat

On the way to the airport 
the taxi driver wants to chat. 
I ask if he speaks English, 
and when he shakes his head, 
I try, "Parlez-vous français?"
He persists, wants me to speak 
Spanish, almost sadly, hungrily, 
so I say, "for three languages," 
pointing to my head, 
it's too "pequeño," or small. 
Even as he drives, he places 
a map of the city on my lap, 
circles with his right hand 
the Alcázar, the imperial 
fortress, asks if I've seen it. 
I recall how my tour book says 
it's like the Alamo, only here 
Franco's right-wing forces had held out.
I shake my head, "no." 
Next, he circles, the Cathedral. 
I say, "si, muy bello," and only then 
he smiles.  I wish 
I could have given him more. 

"Chapel of Bones": The Triumph Of Death is a 16th century Flemish painting by Pieter Brueghel, "the Elder." 

"Sculpture of a Coffin With a Body": Rick Steves' Spain & Portugal 2002 presents a commentary on the Tribunal of the Inquisition which operated out of what is now a school building. 

"Legend of The Cock": Bartomolea Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in 1487. Vasco da Gama sailed to India and back, returning in 1499, his voyage opening up Asia and its riches, including the spice trade, to Portugal. Pedro Alvares Cabral, sailing for India, ended up discovering Brazil in 1500, after being deflected off course by wind and currents. 

"Barco Negro": This poem is a poetic re-telling of the song, "Barco Negro" (in Portuguese, meaning "dark boat)" which appears in the album by the international singing star, Mariza, entitled "Fado em mim." Fado is a type of Portuguese music, analogous to our Blues. The music is usually accompanied by the guitarra (12 stringed guitar), that gives dramatic expression to songs of longing and sorrow. 

"Ercelia Relates": Vila Viçosa is the last residence of the Bragança dynasty.  In the 17th century, Portugal was annexed by the Spanish Habsburg monarchy, a period known as the Sixty Years' Captivity. The eighth Duke of Bragança, João, seized the throne for Portugal in 1640 to end this period. His descendants ruled Portugal until the foundation of the Republic in 1910. 

"Changing Countries": The line, "[m]y land of water in sorrow and sadness," is from a fado song, entitled, "Land of Water," written by Jorge Fernando, and sung by Mariza on the CD, "Fado Em Mim" (Times Square Records, 2002). 

"Cathedral In Seville":  This cathedral is the third largest church in Europe after St. Peter's in the Vatican, and St. Paul's in London. 

"The Priest Who Closed His Breviary": Garcia Lorca was executed at thirty-eight years of age during the Spanish Civil War. His premonitions about an early death came to fruition. 

"A Local Guide on the Alhambra": The Alhambra is the palace and fortress of the Moorish monarchs of Granada, Spain, built during the last Islamic sultanate on the Iberian peninsula, the Nasrid Dynasty (1238 1492). 

"Lost In Toledo": On the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, see Max I. Dimont's Jews, God And History (New American Library, 1962). According to Dimont, there were 150,000 Jews in Spain at the time of the edict by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, compelling them to convert to Catholicism or leave. He notes that 100,000 left, of which 10,000 perished. Some 45,000 of the Jews eventually settled in Turkey. See Rick Steve's Spain & Portugal 2002 for the "eclectic . . . gem" reference to the Sinagoga de Santa Maria Blanca.

Mel Belin was born in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and obtained his B.A. in Psychology from Dartmouth College, and his J.D. degree from George Washington University. He served as an attorney in the General Counsel's Office, Department of Housing and Urban Development. Belin, now retired, lives in Arlington, Virginia. 

Belin's first book of poetry, Flesh That Was Chrysalis, was published by the Word Works, Inc., in 1999. His poetry has appeared in Midstream, Cumberland Review, Poet Lore, Connecticut River Review, Phoebe, The Cape Rock, among other journals. In July 2004, a poem of Belin's was featured on a program distributed by National Public Radio.