Posts tagged federico garcia lorca

If I die,
leave the balcony open.

The child is eating oranges.
(From my balcony I see him.)

The harvester scythes the wheat.
(From my balcony I hear him.)

If I die,
leave the balcony open!

- Federico Garcia Lorca 

Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.

I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.

If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,

never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.

-Federico Garcia Lorca

So I took her to the river
believing she was a maiden,
but she already had a husband.
It was on St. James night
and almost as if I was obliged to.
The lanterns went out
and the crickets lighted up.
In the farthest street corners
I touched her sleeping breasts
and they opened to me suddenly
like spikes of hyacinth.
The starch of her petticoat
sounded in my ears
like a piece of silk
rent by ten knives.
Without silver light on their foliage
the trees had grown larger
and a horizon of dogs
barked very far from the river.

Past the blackberries,
the reeds and the hawthorne
underneath her cluster of hair
I made a hollow in the earth
I took off my tie,
she too off her dress.
I, my belt with the revolver,
She, her four bodices.
Nor nard nor mother-o’-pearl
have skin so fine,
nor does glass with silver
shine with such brilliance.
Her thighs slipped away from me
like startled fish,
half full of fire,
half full of cold.
That night I ran
on the best of roads
mounted on a nacre mare
without bridle stirrups.

As a man, I won’t repeat
the things she said to me.
The light of understanding
has made me more discreet.
Smeared with sand and kisses
I took her away from the river.
The swords of the lilies
battled with the air.

I behaved like what I am,
like a proper gypsy.
I gave her a large sewing basket,
of straw-colored satin,
but I did not fall in love
for although she had a husband
she told me she was a maiden
when I took her to the river.

- Federico Garcia Lorca

I’m not much for adding anything to the poems I post but this one I feel I need to. Now that I’m older the memory of my father reading this poem and reciting it from memory is probably my earliest exposure to poetry as an art form and as something to be treasured and admired. As such this poem holds a special meaning for me and I have made many attempts at committing it to memory. I can hope someday, some poem, will hold a similar sort of meaning to my own children. As with all Lorca poems I feel this one should be read in its original spanish and would normally refuse to even post it in anything but that, however I’m in a sentimental mood and realize most people around here can’t read Spanish anyways.

Also send me over some of your own favorite poems with some sort of personal significance and make sure to add a little not like this to explain why and I’ll try to post as many as I can. Do it!

~ Alex