Here in the great cemetery 
behind the fortress of Barcelona 
I have come once more to see 
the graves of my fallen. 
Two ancient picnickers direct 
us down the hill. “Durruti,” 
says the man, “I was on 
his side.” The woman hushes 
him. All the way down
this is a city of the dead, 
871,251 d~funtos. 
The poor packed in tenements 
a dozen high; the rich 
in splendid homes or temples. 
So nothing has changed 
except for the single 
unswerving fact: they are 
all dead. Here is the Plaza 
of Saint Jaime, here the Rambla 
of San Pedro, so every death 
still has a mailing address, 
but since this is Spain 
the mail never comes or
comes too late to be of use. 
Between the cemetery and 
the Protestant burial ground 
we find the three stones all in a row: Ferrer Guardia, 
B. Durruti, F. Ascaso, the names 
written with marking pens, 
and a few circled A’s and tributes 
to the FAI and CNT. 
For two there are floral 
displays, but Ascaso faces 
eternity with only a stone. 
Maybe as it should be. He was 
a stone, a stone and a blade, 
the first grinding and sharpening 
the other. Half his 36
years were spent in prisons 
or on the run, and yet 
in that last photograph 
taken less than an hour before 
he died, he stands in a dark 
suit, smoking, a rifle slung 
behind his shoulder, and glances 
sideways at the camera 
half smiling. It is July 20, 
1936, and before the darkness 
falls a darkness will have 
fallen on him. While
the streets are echoing 
with victory and revolution, 
Francisco Ascaso will take up 
the hammered little blade 
of his spirit and enter for 
the last time the republics 
of death. I remember 
his words to a frightened 
comrade who questioned 
the wisdom of attack: “We 
have gathered here to die, but we 
don’t have to die with dogs, 
so go.” Forty-one years 
ago, and now the city stretches 
as far as the eye can see, 
huge cement columns like nails 
pounded into the once green 
meadows of the Llobregat. 
Your Barcelona is gone, 
the old town swallowed 
in industrial filth and 
the burning mists of gasoline. 
Only the police remain, armed 
and arrogant, smiling masters 
of the boulevards, the police 
and your dream of the city 
of God, where every man 
and every woman gives 
and receives the gifts of work 
and care, and that dream 
goes on in spite of slums,


in spite of death clouds, 
the roar of trucks, the harbor 
staining the mother sea, 
it goes on in spite of all 
that mocks it. We have it here 
growing in our hearts, as 
your comrade said, and when 
we give it up with our last 
breaths someone will gasp 
it home to their lives. 
Francisco, stone, knife blade, 
single soldier still on 
the run down the darkest 
street of all, we will be back 
across an ocean and a continent 
to bring you red carnations, 
to celebrate the unbroken 
promise of your life that
 once was frail and flesh.