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GOOD FRIDAY, SAETAS, AND COMPLEXITY Good Friday dawned quiet and cloudy. I do not even know if the gulls cried out to welcome the morn—I was sleeping. But the city is as silent as a church before people even think of being there. Today is one of those great holidays and one of the most observed in Spain in the inevitable pairing of religion and state. Nonetheless, yesterday, I was reminded Spain has a long history of opposition to the Church and its role in people’s lives. At the checkout counter in Mercadona, the Spanish supermarket chain, I sleepily asked the young man with a scruffy beard what he was going to eat today, what his family’s tradition was for Good Friday. This is, after all, a day when Catholics and many other Christians are told not to consume meat, in honor of Jesus’ death. Even in my elementary school on the border in Texas we were served fish sticks or some such on this day, rather than the ordinary meat. Carlos, the friendly guy at the counter, looked at me a bit p...
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LIFT ALL AT ONCE; WAIT, A CRY

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  A tricky, yet compelling, subject stands before me: yesterday’s delicate powering of very heavy, religious imagery, down and up steep and narrow street while saetas—sung cries and poems—occasionally break out. The subject is even more powerful since I could not be there to see it or experience it. I only remember what I witnessed last year as well as my conversations and reading about it since then. Even yesterday, the Rubia, the heart of my neighborhood, warned me as I stood in front of her to pay for a Mountain Dew and some vegetables, that I should not even think of going to see it. She felt I was likely to be jostled and potentially knocked down. Given my bad knee that could have serious consequences. “You can watch it on TV, just do not go to see it, please. We need to look out for each other.” I am afraid I did not watch it on TV—I have just lost theTV habit. But I did read and look at images and videos online. I also listened. Last year, I was moveded when suddenly the ent...
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  The day was wearing thin, warmish yet with a chill breeze, when I exited the elevator. A neighbor was just coming in the front door, looking a bit weary, though being him, he had his ever present smile and warmth. To be honest, I do not remember his name though he always remembers mine and gives me the honorific don. We stood there, between inside and outside, and chatted for a while, A committed and practicing Catholic, he just returning from a very full day of processions. It was Good Friday when the city remembers and relives the death of Jesus, important processions take place and he participated in several of them and had one more Friday night. I do not know what they are and can only guess. We spoke about the intense spirituality of the processions, with their sacrifices and dedication. However, he also reminded me that there are people, many possibly, who only participate to look good to fellows and family. Their inner devotion is less. That night he still had processions ...
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  Introduction and Explanation The first of July 2024, I arrived in Spain at the Alicante Elche airport, weary but excited. I had just retired from being a professor of anthropology and honestly had little idea of what, specifically, I was going to do.  I arrived in Alicante where I knew some people and quickly--as they say in Spanish, me ubiqué, I found a place. I threw myself into getting to know the city, and into writing poems.  Since arriving here, I have become more dedicated to my poetry which thrills me.   As a way of celebrating my first year here, I returned to writing roughly thousand word essays in which my ethnographic training, my anthropological knowledge, my sense of sentences, sounds, and metaphors, came together.  The essays were a means of getting ot know Alicante, as they involved physically moving through it, exploring it in space, as well as online and in published articles and books. They are the product of a dynamic interaction played out...
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