CADAQUÉS* by Bridget Sebastian

Arts Richmond

Online - 19 August 2020

“I will build you a castle, my Gala, over the sea at Cadaqués.The thought of death terrifies me. Next to your grave I have prepared my own. Genius must never die.”

                        – Salvador Dalí

The man in the cave dreams of a blue sky

The boat dips over darkened waters

The gypsy sings his Spanish love songs

The olive trees alight and burning

Run down to the water

The snakes are hiding underground

The sea the sky the awful burning

Cadaques a darkening landscape

Pico’s house a burning shell

blackened at the roots and gone

Pico’s olive groves are finished

Winter sea destroyed our shelter

built to shield from summer’s sun

Pico’s life a burning candle

He will die before his time

Cadaques waiting for another summer

waiting for another lonely child

to hide behind the trees

watching the gypsies in the square

The lonely child in Pico wakens

His mother signals beckoning across the blazing sky

It takes only the flash of a knife for Pico to die

The man in the cave folds his blankets

“Cadaques,” he sighs

*Cadaques: pronounced “Ca-da-kays”.

from ABOUT TIME, the 2019 anthology of shortlisted entries from The Roger McGough Poetry Prize. Copies of this Anthology can be purchased for £5 including P&P from Arts Richmond.