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THE GYPSIES’S FIRE
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to Catarina
.
in the south of Lanzarote, near Playa Blanca,
in a place they call Los Charcones,
I saw the closest thing on earth
to the moon
the landscape is covered in pyroclasts, in hardened ash,
in dust.
nothing survives here, save the creeping euphorbia
and one or another species of lizard
but at night this desert fills with bonfires,
with small scattered flames
between walls and tents
they say it’s the gypsies’ fire,
no one knows where they come from or where they go.
and I say blessed be they, for they exist
.
Poem by João Ricardo Lopes from the book Em Nome da Luz (2022 | Translated by Marcus Margrave (2026)
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