At the borders of sight live rocky hills behind brown and golden and olive crop under a cloudless sky.
Sun beams brighten motley roofs on tessellations which blacken beige in blurry air.
BANG!
An artificial cloud.
“Look,” she points, “Let’s go!”
She takes him and they fly down stairs, diving like sparrows into the street.
Boys sprint across pavements and climb; men vault over fences in time for news to reach ears.
“They’re coming! "¡Ya vienen!"
Excitement and fear.
The rattling of cow bells and galloping nears.
Men bait and dodge horns and escape through doors and up and over red wooden bars.
Sticks beat on the concrete ground and drive the mute beasts's sounds.
Seconds away – until the last, he side steps into a house;
indoors,
apart,
he runs through the foyer and up the stairs around a corner.
Long strides
too fast to follow.
She chooses left and sings soprano when doors won't budge and a beast crashed in.
She turns and the fear is paralysing.
"FERMIN!"
"FERMIN!"
"FERMIN!"
He hurdles the stairs and explodes when it rams her to and fro, thrashing her head against the wall where horns sin and gore cement and brick.
He clasps the tail and heaves its hide from side to side as hooves smash crates of wine - they slip and slide in fractured glass; he finds a horn and yanks the head! He's yanked instead near dead before the men arrive down stairs to punch and kick it; strike and stick it smack and hit it; 'til it fits and quits and flees the foyer, fast and frantic, flying flustered by the frenzy, finally finding pattering paves it peters off down
the
street.
"¿Que ha pasado? ¿Quien ha sido? ¡El Balbotin y la Chicha! ¡Que una vaca les ha pillado!"
"¿Estas bien?"
Dizzy she's there with searching hands and scolding.
"Podria haber sido peor"
This poem is about an incident which happened to my Grandparents, Fermin Yanguas Ochoa and Raimunda Ramos Frias.
It was during a bull run in their village (Fitero) in Navarra, Northern Spain. 1972