Bog Myrtle & Peat

There are different ways of going.

For Cavafy, the passage to Ithaca is fortified against disappointment because even if it turns out that the final destination is smaller than you hoped, the journey itself was the real prize. When death comes, be grateful for everything that happened along the way.

For Lorca, Córdoba can neither delight nor disappoint the traveller. The journey towards that city is based upon the indisputable fact that you will never make it. It’s all the same experience, and death is not kept in a separate jar as something to be opened at the end.

And now I’ve been to Andalusia, feeling a warmth in the stones and the mercury rising. I’ve seen the great, green Guadalquivir river slipping between the ribs of a roman bridge; the starburst of palm trees; the squirm of jasmine and mascara and the scream of long-tailed birds in the dawn. 

Lorca wasn’t talking about any real Córdoba. I’ve caught myself in a muddle between real and imagined places before, and I won’t make the same mistake again – but there is a road between these two Córdobas – and of all the poets and writers I’ve pursued over the last twenty years, Lorca is so deeply nested in a sense of place that even the colours of my own home drain towards him.