Now it is a city - My first post since 31 January 2018, when I left for Spain

taken Thursday, 15 February 2018, in Carrión de los Condes, Castilla y León, Spain

Now it is a city

that was given reason to be

one thousand one hundred

and twenty-two years ago

as a bridge across some old river

with a pre-Latinate name

but not the exact one represented

here in this entirely digital depiction,

because the exact one here represented

is the old bridge over Rio Carrión

in Carrión de los Condes

(the home of the infamous
Infantes de Carrión,

Fernando y Diego González,

the cowardly and villainous sons-in-law

of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar el Campeador,

El Cid)

in the Province of Palencia

in the Autonomous Community

of Castilla y León

in the Kingdom of Spain,

but this other city—

la ciudad de la imaginación—

grew from there because

Alfonso the Third of Asturias,

(born, circa the year 848 Anno Domini,

and lived until he died

on the 20^th day of December

in the year 910 Anno Domini)

Alfonso el Magno,

built a bridge to carry the hopeless—

hopeless because they had put away their hope

and because they had also put away their despair—

and to carry those others

who were full of hope beyond human hope—

who were as worthy

of not having to wade chest-deep

or not having to swim

and risk drowning themselves

and their companions

and their pack animals

as those who had put away human hope

and also put away human despair.

Alfonso the Third of Asturias,

Alfonso el Magno,

decreed this bridge

to be built to carry them

across a river like the bridge

over Rio Carrión in Carrión de los Condes

in search of the tomb of Santiago

and over the duration of more than a millenium

the bridge became a town

with rival monasterios y refugios
y hospitales, and then the bridge

became a city, and, even today,

there is an unusual flow

along these cities, towns,

and these crumbling villages—

a flow of some old light left

among the old stones

and all the vacant, living ruins,

floating in the red dust,

drifting in the current of the water

flowing from open gates

through modern, concrete aqueducts

to quench the thirst of wheat

growing under the sun of the high Meseta

but this is not that bridge

nor is it that city,

for this digital representation

of the bridge over Rio Carrión

in Carrión de los Condes

is the well-spring of detail and legend

de la ciudad de la imaginación
and its mythical stone bridge.