fear and death -

I take the new American Poetry Review to the Shoreline Cafe, and amazingly,  the first poems are by Federico Garcia Lorca, as translated by Ralph Angel.

The poems are perfect to fulfill what Jane and I discussed this morning. 

I think of Death as the Cup that holds us as it dissolves.

I believe we need purpose.  Without it, we are lost.  


I offer here some poems of Lorca as translated by Angel.


POEM OF THE SOLEA

    to Jorge Zalamea

Dry land,
quiet land
of night's
intensity.

(Wind in the olive groves,
wind in the Sierra.)

Ancient
land
of oil lamps
and grief.
Land
of deep cisterns.
Land
of death without eyes
and arrows.

(Wind on the roads.
Breeze in the poplar groves.)




Dagger

The dagger
enters the heart
the way plowshares turn over
the wasteland.

           No.
Do not cut into me.
          No.

Like a ray of sun,
the dagger
ignites terrible
hollows.

          No.
Do not cut into me.
          No.




Solea

Wearing black mantillas,
she thinks the world is tiny
and the heart immense.

Wearing black mantillas.

She thinks that tender sighs
and cries disappear
into currents of wind.

Wearing black mantillas.

The door was left open,
and at dawn the entire sky
emptied onto her balcony.

Ay yayayayay,
wearing black mantillas!




from "Clamor"

Death travels down a road
crowned with withered orange blossoms.
Death sings and sings
a song
with her ancient white guitar ....

Wind and dust
fashion prows of silver.




The Cry

The ellipse of a cry
echoes from mountain
to mountain.

From the olive trees
a black rainbow
veils the blue night.

          Ay!

Like the bow of a viola
the cry vibrates long strings
of wind.

          Ay!

(The cave dwellers'
oil lamps begin to appear.)

          Ay!



Lorca was murdered at the age of thirty-eight, during the Spanish Civil War, by order of Francisco Franco.  His writings and the details of his death were not openly discussed in Spain until Franco's death in 1975.  And, yet, as we see, all good eventually comes to light.