Las Tapas de Lola, Wexford Street, Dublin, 16 May 2024 One thing to be borne off to war, be born to burning, another to know nothing but peace and grazing sheep. On a phosphorus- white platter, triangles crafted from milk of black ewes with Cuenca honey for dipping. Oh the honeypots, the buyers and vendors of arms, the double dipping to sweeten the deal on both sides. Far from sleepy farms, esparto, lavender, far from incinerated refugee tent cities, razed towns, at that trendy spot we drank down a tinto’s dark notes, a great unkindness of ravens in the palate’s nave.
The Spanish word canto means “song,” “singing,” “chant,” or “hymn,” but in some regions of Spain it also means “piece” or “slice” when it refers to a round cheese like manchego.
PROCESS NOTE, AND A REPRISED TANKA
Some say a first human incarnation unfolds in a place where the rhythms of nature and earthbound labor gently introduce the soul to its new condition.
That lovely thought returned to me last month in Dublin at Las Tapas de Lola as Laura and I savored cheese and honey from La Mancha’s arid provinces.
Back home, I wanted to write a poem steeped in the sensory world of a novice human who first encounters a herd of ovejas manchegas, those distinctive sheep with their long necks and droll faces, then learns to milk the ewes, weave molds from esparto grass, track honeybees through lavender, and collect the honey from their hives.
But as the poem took shape, my memory served up images of a different scene, this one only blocks from Lola’s: the pro-Palestine, anti-Israel encampment on the grounds of Trinity College. We had left Dublin and were en route from Galway to Cork when Hamas praised the Irish foreign minister’s announcement that Ireland would soon recognize Palestine as an independent state. Days later, the Palestinian flag was flying over Leinster House, seat of the Irish Parliament.
Often a poem will go where it needs to go, if we get out of its way. Is that what happened here? Did the poem intervene in what might have become a sentimental ode to innocence (“Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan”)? Or did I let mental chatter and emotional static hijack the fledgling poem?
I could argue either side. What remains is that the poem developed a second layer, with allusions to combat in Gaza, tendentious allegations (and hairsplitting denials) of Israel’s use of white phosphorus in Lebanon, moral ambiguity, banal complicity in evil, and the hedge fund that doubles as the global munitions trade.
Anyway, belly up to the tapas bar for manchego cheese with honey, a shot of duende, and a side of cognitive dissonance. ¡Buen provecho!
UNTOUCHED I’ve lived quietly on manicured streets untouched by famine and free from improvised explosive devices, but that’s just me. (Originally published at Diary Poems 6.29.2023)
This poem brings to mind “Oysters” by Seamus Heaney. The way in which we are mentally in many places at once, considering the aspects of randomness at our good fortune when others are suffering greatly. A poem can contain so much. Thank you for this one.
Intricate poem. Fascinating to read and my first reaction when reading the byline at the start re: Tapas de Lolas was that this would be an exciting reaction to a trip to somewhere I know so well (both restaurant and city) but it became a complex mix of three places and situations.
It is also interesting to see how something like those protests could impact on not just the local people but also the visitor who happens to be there at the same time as the protest... It leaves a lasting impression regardless and asks so many complex questions.
Thanks for sharing this and giving this insight in your notes. It is really excellent writing.