Author: Isabel Sanchez Heras

The Cone, in this poem by Isabel Sánchez Heras, is the mountain that rises just outside her natal village of Benaojan in the Serrania de Ronda, a mountain range in southern Andalusia. This region, like so many in the world, is ever more frequently beset by droughts, floods, and fires. In its folklore, the appearance of an itinerant knife-sharpener means there will be a death in the village. There’s nothing more vertiginous than seeing the Cone in clouds, and it’s not raining in the village. I’m frightened by the signals nature gives and then doesn’t finish. The rook flies...