earlier this year we were in Majorca for a family wedding.  While there I had to go to see Robert Graves' house in Deja, where my father conducted an interview with the poet - once Spanish customs had allowed the camera gear through that is.  Anyway, the long and short of it is that I wrote a poem.  Here it is:

LOOKING FOR SIGNS OF MY FATHER AT LA CASA DE ROBERT GRAVES

It is easy to forget how straight is the edge of the earth,

how the two blues fold on an invisible seam. And the heat

so relentless that one yearns for yard thick walls

and dampness, for a certain kind of greenness that contains

both the end and beginning of things.  We zigzagged

with oohs and aahs the Majorcan coastline

to la Casa de Robert Graves, then sweated through its rooms

where my father had filmed almost sixty years before

when they were full of things moved, scraped, used.

Now they have the fascination of honeycomb, sweet

with the glucose of what was.  I seek a hint of my father’s

presence, but the wastepaper baskets are all empty.