Grazalema

down the steep stone path
through the tunnel
behind thick heavy fortified moorish doors
with Arabic brass hands

the old Spanish man in the beret
the music teacher
looks like a hard nosed fascist
left over from the civil war

its something about his voice
telling the scared shitless student
fingering his clarinet

working on their invisible time
reading the score

Fingering The Cross

the middle aged man on the spanish
bench in his new climbing boots
fingers his heavy gold cross

hanging on gold chain from
unemployed neck
he turns it to catch the sun

it takes light eight long minutes to reach his gold cross

reflecting it over his thin sweatered shoulder
in a clothes closed offering

holding it, turning it, feeling its weight
sighing
sitting on the iron bench
looking down, down at the gold
down at the filigree work,
thorns crucifix gold nails in gold palms
dancing in the light

remembering how it came to him
how someone in his life
bestowed its sacrifice into his life
holding it now
up to the light
its weight colors all he sees
letting it drop
falling upon his chest
where his eyes rest

Text here

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Biography

Timothy M. Leonard was born in Colorado many summers ago. He is a Vietnam Veteran and served with the Screaming Eagles. He attended the University of Northern Colorado and graduated from the University of Oregon. He is presently enrolled in the University of The Street. He is an author of a children's book about trust with ebooksonthe.net, and a freelance Ebook editor with AtlanticBridge.com. His writing and digital work appears with ZoneZero, IdentityTheory, Journal E, OnTheBrightSide, Kid's Highway, PoetrySuperHighway, NetAuthorsE2K, Babylon Travel, comrade.org.uk, Stirring, A Literary Collection and OZimages, a photo stock agency. He is presently sitting down in a Pacific Northwest forest on Indian ceremonial ground.