Yesterday I found the place were Lorca the Spanish poet and playwright was shot 72 years ago, I wasn’t on a mission to find it I just realised that I was suddenly in the area where it might be. There is no sign, no announcement that you should look here, I just had a feeling. I have never been to a poet’s grave before and maybe all poets’ graves are like this. This is a mass grave between Viznar and Alfacar near Granada. Two things surprised me. First when I found it there was no one there, just me, and I thought this was odd considering this is a mass grave and was Sunday. At first sight you see a ditch filled with stones and dots of colour and on closer inspection realise they are placed in the shape of a crucifix. They are decorated with plastic flowers.
The second thing that surprised me was finding so many poems placed under stones. They were everywhere the more I looked; some were in the trees others had escaped their fixings and were swirling around the basin of this grave in the wind.
There was a newly erected stone, for Lorca, placed in 2002, at its base were more poems under stones.
As I left the ditch others were arriving, many people in small groups, all were quiet as if in a church. Getting back to the car I found eight or nine more cars, I was lucky to find this place. Driving back through this high ground at the foot of the Sierra Nevada I saw other little mounds of rock with faded plastic flowers and this is not something particular to this place, once you recognise one shrine you can spot them throughout Spain. This is a lovely web site about his house.