What Comes Down OUR Calle Florida
Yeah, Yeah all the tour books say a million pedestrians stroll these 16 blocks every day.
Beware the ladrones!
Shoppers, vendors, tourists all purposefully moving along at different paces.
Moving past our building where our tiny apartment gives me a glimpse of the street, a glimpse when I hang off the narrow balcony and stretch a long neck to the left.
If the wind blows from the east, luring words drift upward, "cambio, cambio, cambio" or "tango show, lady" or "leather factory, lady" as they echo through soft street music.
But other happenings along Calle Florida stun me into silence.
There was butterfly week. Up they came from south to north,
Tiny orange flutterers tinted with yellow, day after day
Zooming up past the 11th floor and out of sight
On a mission to somewhere, I think.
More butterflies than the determined window shoppers. Why don’t you look up at these fragile beauties, I wonder
And the clouds.
The puffy ones float by from west to east
White figures against deep blue where I search for tango dancers or other kinds of mating rituals
Oops, there goes a spouting whale- moving backwards next to a toadstool forest
My bed in the window where the street sounds are muted from Cordoba is a candy store.
The southern cross stares down at me from this window bed, but I doubt if the pedestrians along the street below look above to find its silent beauty
How can life become that busy?
Karen Lucey April 2014
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