The Peasant Woman above Tarifa

The shadow is bluest when the body
that casts it has vanished.

Rafael Alberti

Without warning she appears
in coastal hills, sea winds
blowing, no trees to calm
the land that sweeps like a luminous
shadow under the strait and into
the foothills of another country.

Clearly she has come for flowers,
gathering cluster upon cluster,
her apron swollen, overflowing.
Spanish lace for the children,
she marvels, then loosens
her blouse, uncovering a pendant,
circular, ornate.  For a long
time she twirls the necklace
in the sun, and it shimmers.

Light blue, color of mist,
translucent, a Mediterranean moon--
it blues in the eyes of her children
when she returns home, covering
the table with rustling blossooms.

And when she reads to them,
it flutters, a seabird longing
for the slopes above Tarifa,
where it would rinse in the litght
this woman left behind, vanishing
into town, her shadow blue,
the earth bluer.

(c)Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda

"The Peasant Woman above Tarifa" from her book, Contrary Visions [Scripta Humanistica, 1988, under the name Carolyn Kreiter-Kurylo].  The poem first appeared in the journal, Poet Lore.