Issue 6: Judith Barrington

by Paula Lietz

Almassera Night

Nightingales fresh from the south flute in the dark.

We listen weighed down by history from four until dawn

when the aquaducts thrill to a tentative tinkle,

a sudden gurgle, the headlong tumble of water.

Arab hands shaped and laid out the troughs

and pipes under rock, under sand, along the base

of terraces walled by the Romans—stairs climbing

right to the top of the mountain. The call to prayer

was smothered by bells and confessions, sinners

on bleeding knees who shuffled uphill

past twelve alcoven stations below the hermitage.

Moorish ruins burn gold in the amber floodlights

that seep into our room like old beliefs—

like the dregs of a prayer, a trickle of grief from the earth,

so many ancient sorrows that ought to be gone—

wiped out by the weight of god upon god upon god.

Judith Barrington is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Horses and the Human Soul, selected by Oregon’s State Library for "150 Books for the Sesquicentennial". Among her awards are The Dulwich International Poetry Prize and The Stuart Holbrook Award from Literary Arts. She teaches in the University of Alaska’s MFA Program.

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