I’m half awake, dreaming of boats and voyages – strange so far from the sea. This place is all about crossing places, though, many layered, one on another as you walk up through the city towards the Alhambra, through the Alcazar. Peeling away the layers or sliding between them, something infinitesimal traversing an onion.
A Little square – Igelesia de San Miguel (I think) – later. Kids playing football, café tables and more swallows than I’ve ever seen before. Gone, now, as the moon grows fat and waxy and the afternoon blue drains from the edges of the sky…
But they were in full flight as I walked into the square looking for something to eat, something to drink and a bit of a rest for weary feet (I’ve already realised I’m unlikely to find peace and quiet anywhere around here – it’s just not in the nature of the place). They were in full flight… crying, whipping, ducking and weaving, tearing the sky to shreds. Ships, voyages, intricate, random swallow lace…and here am I, wandering about Parzifal and Fierfitz and how it was when two worlds first started to interpenetrate each other….here, 1,100 years ago…
Sometimes I find myself listening for voices, catching echoes and fragments, images and imaginings. Snatches from a would-be story board, perhaps?
‘A Castle cut from gilded leather, against a dark velvet sky and each window alight in turn as the one who lives there (who ?) walks from room to room…moving away through steep, enclosed, jumbled streets, suddenly opens out into a square and a sky full of birds…’