poetry After Lorca

Patty Dickson Pieczka’s poem “After Lorca” marks the Spanish poet’s murder by Spanish fascists on August 16, 1936.

Patty Dickson Pieczka Bitter Oleander
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After Lorca

By Patty Dickson Pieczka
 

They came for me
as they came for the moon.
And though they beat her heart
into white necklaces and rings,*
of me they wished only
a mouthful of dirt.

But some still hear me
when a violin moans
through the piazza, trees
creak their sad guitars
in the bosque or shiny stones
ring bells as the river
splashes kisses over me.

Some still search for me
as they would a garden of gold.
I see them in the evenings, looking
through the lake's dark window and
wearing the moon around their necks.

*Line from "Ballad of the Moon" by Frederico Garcia Lorca

Patty Dickson Pieczka’s third book, Beyond the Moon’s White Claw

won the David Martinson—Meadowhawk Prize from Red Dragonfly

Press. Her second book, Painting the Egret’s Echo, won the

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Library of Poetry Book Award from Bitter Oleander Press. Other

books are Lacing Through Time, Word Paintings and a novel,

Finding the Raven. Winner of the ISPS, Francis Locke Memorial,

and Maria Faust Sonnet Contests, she was twice nominated for the

Pushcart Prize. Patty graduated from SIU’s creative writing

program and currently lives in Carbondale.

http://www.pattywrites.net/Patty Dickson