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Casida: The Open Air Dream
Flower of jasmine and a decapitated bull.
Endless paving. A map. A room. A harp. Dawn.
The girl dreams of a bull of jasmine
and the bull is a bloody dusk that bellows.
If the sky were a little boy
the jasmine would be the dark centre of night,
and the bull a blue arena without matadors,
and a heart at the foot of a column.
But the sky is an elephant,
the jasmine is water without blood,
and the girl is a branch at night
across the endless dark paving.
The jasmine and the bull
or hooks of ivory or people asleep.
In the jasmine, an elephant and clouds,
and in the bull, the skeleton of the girl.
English translation by Paul Archer of Lorca's Casida del sueño al aire libre.
For more poems from this collection, go to El Diván Del Tamarit.
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