To Lorca

Your gypsy moon seeps
through my night sky
I hear the moan of the corpses
at the dead of night,
And the garland of my freshly cut tears
decorates the margins of my heart…
It’s true that I do not know my own geometry,
And I shatter my mirrors with my axe,
But the perfume you smelt –
Of that dark magnolia, of that womb…
I can smell that too…

You wanted to be a heart
And they tore it apart…
The green valleys of Andulasia
are red with your blood today
You wanted to be a nightingale
And they shot it down…
But it’s mournful songs still fill the Spanish nights
For they couldn’t kill the songs…

I was looking for my voice
in a drop of water
And you gave me your silence –
A ring – for my little finger

I worship you, with my flowers…
And my flowers are nothing but the
sadness of Cyrano and Quixote

I saw you, as you came bleeding from the
gates of Cabra, wishing to die decent
on your bed…
But they didn’t let you do that…
And I heard your sighs…
They rang out like frozen screams…

As the moon crept up the sky
The bells stopped tolling
Water from the seven seas
washed the earth, and
I saw your heart, trembling,
like a lonely island surrounded
by Eternity…
I lost my way, and I reached the frozen
kingdom…
As I trampled over the grasses that
had grown over the twentyone dumb centuries
I heard your thousand violines
and saw your muted tears…

Every clock showed five, I remember
So did every twilight of every dusk
While you were crying for Ignacio
The gangrene raised it’s head
And you forbade the moon to rise
For you did not want to see his blood…

The gangrene stabbed you too
And you too fell…

We stood and stared as the most
beautiful flower of Spain fell
to the dust
And we did nothing…

For we were the archers
And we were blind, like love
On that night of anise and silver
That shone, like it still shines
On the streams and the mirrors
Of our lonely nights, our rooftops
And we were too busy listening
to the starless silence fleeing from
the rhythmic tambourine of Precosia…
As the gypsy moon, the parchment
moon, glided on her ballads…

Then your poet friend – he shouted out
“Come and see the blood in the streets!”
“Come and see the blood in the streets!”
“Come and see the blood in the streets!”
We rushed out, and you were there
no more…
We couldn’t find you,
But neither could they
And in their wrath, they
broke down the churches, cupboards, graveyards
and barrels…
They snatched the golden teeth off three broken
skeletons,
Yet they could not find you…

Years have passed,
Death for piano has painted all
the little boys blue…
And your flute still plays
beyond the horizons, bloodsheds and
breezes of the bohemian cities
where the flags still flutter at the
street corners,
and black horses with black hooves
stand, and the three Sultans of Persia
stare, with wonder in their eyes
at the virgin wearing her almond neckless
and her chocolate-wrapper dress…

Tell me, Poet, tell this to me,
Did you find what you were searching for?
Did you seek in your heart for the
ivory letters that say “siempre” ?
Where have you gone, Poet?
Where did you vanish?
Did you go to the first picture?
to the water, to the rustling autumn leaves,
to the newborn, where the black-eyed
frosts fail to reach?
Are you floating around in the first breeze
of love and sand, above the crowd of
the boats, above the empty riverbed?
Have you gone to the Green that you love?
To the balcony, where she dreams with
her cold silver eyes?

The careful river, the little lonely
brook…
Perhaps you’re there, perhaps
you have found her warm heart…
But I won’t go searching for you
For I am a flutist
and I’m not wanted there
I’ll be a woodman, and I’ll
cut your shadow down,
for that’s what you wanted…

And I’ll leave your balcony open
So that you can see the little
boy eating his orange, and hear
the reaper harvesting the wheat
on the lush fields of Granada…

Poet, I know that you’re not dead
You’re only sleeping awhile –
a minuite, a century…
And dreaming of the apples …
And you’re dreaming of not dreaming
Within the cascade…
For I can still hear your guitar,
weeping…
Beyond the tents, across the
lonely Malagueña nights
And I know that
the rose didn’t want the dusk
And the two black pigeons
you loved – they were the sun and the moon…