poetry

An old favorite of mine: The Beloved by Paul Eluard

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She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is inside mine,
She is the shape of my hand,
She is the color of my eyes,
She is surrounded by my shadows
Like a rock by the sky.

Her eyes always opened
She never lets me sleep
Her dreams in broad daylight
Make sunlight evaporate,
Make me laugh, cry and laugh,
Speak without a thing to say.

translated by Michael Benedikt

Bird-Catcher’s Song by Jacques Prevert

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The bird that flies so sweetly
The bird red and warm as blood
The bird so tender the bird mocking
The bird that suddenly is afraid
The bird that suddenly hurts itself
The bird that would like to flee
The bird alone and enraged
The bird that would like to live
The bird that would like to sing
The bird that would like to cry
The bird red and warm as blood
The bird that flies so sweetly
It’s your heart pretty child
Your heart that beats for the wings so sadly
Against your breast so hard and white

translated by Mark Strand and Jean Ballard

Saltimbanques: for Louis Dumur by Guillaume Apollinaire

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Across the field the traveling clowns
Go past beside the gardens
Before the doors of mist-enshrouded inns
Through churchless towns

Some children run out ahead of them
While others fall back dreaming
Each fruit-tree gladly resigns
Its burden when from far off they make their signs

The weights they bear are round or square
With tambourines and hoops gilt silver
Wise beasts the bear the monkey
Beg small coins along the way

translated by Michael Benedikt

Flamenco Cabaret by Federico Garcia Lorca

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Lamps of crystal
and green mirrors.

On the darkened stage,
Parrala maintains
a conversation
with Death.
She calls Death,
but Death never comes,
and she calls out again.
The people are
inhaling her sobs.
And in the green mirrors,
her long, silk train
sways back and forth.

translated by Carlos Bauer

Road by Federico Garcia Lorca

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A hundred riders in funeral dress,
where will they go
in that laid-to-rest sky
of the orange grove?
Neither Cordoba nor Sevilla
will they ever reach.
Nor that Granada which sighs
for the sea.
Those drowsy horses
will carry them:
to that labyrinth of crosses
where the song shudders so.
With seven ays piercing them,
where will they go
those hundred Andalusian riders
of the orange grove?

translated by Carlos Bauer

Night by Federico Garcia Lorca

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Candle, oil lamp,
lamppost and firefly.

The constellation
of the saeta.

Little golden windows
tremble,
and at dawn superimposed
crosses sway about.

Candle, oil lamp,
lamppost and firefly.

translated by Carlos Bauer

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The saeta is a musical prayer that is sung as an offering after the procession stops during Holy Week in Seville.

Dance by Federico Garcia Lorca

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In The Garden Of The Petenera

In the garden’s night,
six Gypsy girls,
dressed in white,
are dancing.

In the garden’s night,
crowned
with paper roses
and bishop’s weed.

In the garden’s night,
their mother-of-pearl teeth
wore the charred
shadow.

In the garden’s night,
their shadows lengthen
and reach up to the sky
with a purplish color.

translated by Carlos Bauer