What the poet is searching for
is not the fundamental I
but the deep you.
translated by Robert Bly
20th Century Spanish poetry
from Moral Proverbs & Folk Songs by Antonio Machado
Pay attention now:
a heart that’s all by itself
is not a heart.
translated by Robert Bly
Flamenco Cabaret by Federico Garcia Lorca
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
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
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
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
Memento by Federico Garcia Lorca
When I die,
bury me with my guitar
beneath the sand.
When I die,
among orange trees
and mint plants.
When I die,
bury me, if you would,
inside a weather vane.
When I die!
translated by Carlos Bauer
A remembrance is moving by Juan Ramon Jimenez
A remembrance is moving
down the long memory, disturbing
the dry leaves with its delicate feet.
—Behind, the house is empty.
On ahead, highways
going on to other places, solitary highways,
stretched out.
And the rain is like weeping eyes,
as if the eternal moment were going blind—.
Even though the house is quiet and shut,
even though I am not in it, I am in it.
And. . .good-bye, you who are walking
without turning your head!
translated by Robert Bly
Nothing More? by Juan Ramon Jimenez
Only my face and the sky.
The only universe.
My face, alone, and the sky.
(Between them, the pure breeze,
a fond caress, the only hand
that brings so much plentifulness;
the breeze, always rising and falling.)
Above me, all that is life,
the entire dream within me,
brushing against my senses with its wings,
that he has brought into harmony.
Nothing more.
. . . . . . .Are you perhaps
the breeze that comes and goes
from the sky, love, to my face?
translated by Dennis Maloney & Clark Zlotchew
Light and Water by Juan Ramon Jimenez
The light above–golden,orange, green
among the vague clouds.
Ah, trees without leaves,
roots in water,
branches in light!
Underneath, the water–green, orange, golden
among the vague mist.
Among the vague mist, among the vague clouds,
light and water; what magic they vanish!
translated by Dennis Maloney
Leonard Durso 