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Gacela: Dark Death
I long to sleep the sleep of apples
far from the commotion of cemeteries.
I long to sleep the sleep of the child
who wanted to cut out his heart on the high seas.
I don’t want to hear that the dead have no blood to shed,
and the rotten mouth goes on crying out for water.
I don’t want to know about the sacrifices that make the grass grow,
or about the moon, its snake-like mouth
busily at work before dawn.
I’d like to sleep for a while,
a while, a minute, a century,
but in such a way that everyone knows I’m not dead,
that there's a stable of gold inside my lips,
that I’m the playmate of the West Wind
and the enormous shadow of my tears.
Cover me with a veil against the dawn
that flings at me fistfuls of ants,
and moisten with hard water my shoes
so its scorpion’s claws slide off.
Because I long to sleep the sleep of apples
to learn a lament that cleanses me of the earth;
because I long to live with that dark child
who wanted to cut out his heart on the high seas.
English translation by Paul Archer of Lorca's Gacela de la muerte oscura.
For more poems from this collection, go to El Diván Del Tamarit. |
