being with catalonia

not gaudi, nor picasso, nor no man, could sing the song catalonia sings each day without being asked.

The salt roars off the rugged coastline and cures the entire place in one fell swoop.

The salt in the air is no different than the salt in this ham--the deep red, the fatty wet--the ham i seem to find in this hand whether breakfast or dinner does the church chime ring over the salt-cured children of this lovely place.

And as the catalonian sun rises up my spine and neck the same deep redness rises from beneath my skin as it comes to roast.  

sweat gently fills the cracks of my forehead like raindrops fill the crevice of that boulder before it's burrow is full and rolls off the tip of my nose in one salty plunge.

i too, now, reddened by the sun, salt-cured by my sweat--i too, now, can raise my forearm to my lips and taste catalonia with a lick of my own skin.

i too, now, having suckled catalonia's full teat, taste of this ham, of this people, of this place.

no one, not the stray dogs howling, not the roosters strutting, not even the wind which carries this salt from the sea, through the grasses to and fro--no one, and certainly not my words, can express catalonia more sweetly than herself.