Gacela: The Dead Child
Every evening in Granada,
every evening a child dies.
Every evening the water sits down
and converses with friends.
The dead wear wings of moss.
The cloudy wind and the clear wind
are two pheasants flying over the towers
and the day is a wounded boy.
You didn’t leave a lark’s speck in the air
when I found you by the wine grottos.
You didn’t leave a cloud’s crumb on the ground
when you were drowning in the river.
A giant of water fell onto the mountains
and the valley rolled by with lilies and dogs.
Your body, in the violet shade of my hands,
lay dead on the bank like an archangel of cold.
English translation by Paul Archer of Lorca's Gacela del niño muerto.
For more poems from this collection, go to El Diván Del Tamarit.
|
