OFLUXO

In January and February on hilltops, in blastocysts of stone houses with low ceilings slung together, people clump around greasy wood ovens for warmth, animals huddling underneath.

Wintry air marches down the Pyrenees headfirst into pijo Cadaqués, plate-glass shattering everything into cyan shards, metal signs ripped off their moors, hats flying, dunes eat into jabalí trails in the beachgrass.

Coming in like a distant highway, on the tinny pang of church-bells, expanding into all of space, enveloping, rending ancient structures willy-nilly, disheveled.

Barn doors blast open and slap flush against wood frames, glass weather-seals chattering, things peel.

Sagebrush haired sweatshirt-wearers squint forever, madly sweeping to fight the sand back and cigarette butts and beer cans and crumpled dusty Kinder wrappers that fly in from the fields and collect in the armpits of one-way streets.

Acrid shit-slurry spread shallowly over fallow surfaces, peanut-buttery reek, a grainy, all-consuming temporary phthisis, overwhelming the entryways of old farmer’s houses, prune-faced poker-players with dead noses.

A plume of pigeons rises from an old terra cotta rooftop, does one half of a half turn, a contrail line disseminating into blue vastness.

In the lust-flood of springtime, almond trees lift their skirts, tendrils unfurl and birds gawk in the marshes.

On longer days, oversized lemons and lode tomatoes sag off the vine, fat figs drip purple vinegar, punch drunk wasps and butterflies tumble through sunflowers.

An albino deer agape in the far distance, a permacast tractor path.

One work boot impaled musty and upside-down on a wooden stake, waiting.

Evening yellow lingers like perfume in an elevator, too long, painterly, perfect.

Under its spell, stone walls and thousand year doors exfoliate.
Shotgun shells scattered and rustling over the broken marble pathway glinting off towards the downing sun.

Butter white swamp horses chortle to themselves quietly in the muck in the shadow of power lines crossing the wilderness, the moon thick in the clouds.

We came here to imagine kids building forts in the floodplain detritus.

To observe leaves fall from trees, expressionist lichen, a blurry black bodied crow streaks across the plane, time unravels in front of our panting summer faces and wild windy squinting eyes.

A time-lapse of matter building up and frothing forth, swelling in assertive dominion, then weathered, receding, bowing justly and blowing away; moment after moment and year after year.

– Andrew Birk, 2019